Disposable Heroes
by BlackIceWitch
Summary: S9 WARNING! There are spoilers contained within this story! This is the sequel to Silver to Charon, beginning with the ending of that story and incorporating all the episodes of S9 as it goes, reimagined and expanded in the same way. No slash. Reviews are deeply appreciated, comments are always welcomed.
1. Chapter 1 After the Fall

**Chapter 1 After the Fall**

* * *

><p><em>Life planned out before my birth, nothing could I say<br>Had no chance to see myself, moulded day by day  
>Looking back I realize, nothing have I done<br>Left to die with only friend  
>Alone I clench my gun<em>

~ Metallica

* * *

><p>Light caught his peripheral vision and Sam's eyes turned toward it, just catching the end of the flaming tail of the meteorite before it hit the ground. And his chest eased, the next breath deeper. Quieter. Not so hard.<p>

"Dean –" he gasped, and felt Dean's arm circle his shoulders.

"What?"

"I think it's –"

They both turned to look at the sky when they heard it – a rushing, crackling sound, like an enormous satin sheet shaken out, or a monstrous wildfire, distantly heard.

Beside him, Dean stared at the sky, seeing the clouds lit up as the bodies passed through them. "No, Cas," he murmured, knowing what those lights were, knowing what he was seeing.

The sky was filled with meteorites, Sam thought disconnectedly, the long tails blurred and distorted in his vision.

"What's happening?" he asked Dean.

Dean glanced down at him, seeing his chest rise and fall more fully. "Can you breathe?"

Sam nodded, staring past him at the sky. He saw a shape, in flames, his eyes widening as the great wings were burned up and fell away and the humanoid figure hit the river, sending huge clouds of steam from the surface.

Dean turned his head to look back at them, his gaze tracking the plummeting figures across the sky. Was Cas one of them?

"Angels," he told his brother, his voice hushed in awe. "They're falling."

In the curve of his brother's arm, Sam blinked rapidly, staring at the fiery balls that were falling everywhere, no quadrant of the sky unlit.

"Do we have more, Dean?" he asked, leaning against his brother's side, wondering if they'd get into trouble for the fireworks they'd lit in the field. They were all one colour, he thought, brow creasing slightly as he looked at them.

"What?" Dean turned to see Sam's eyes roll back, heat reaching out through his clothes and burning against his skin. "Sam! Sammy!"

_No. Not now. No, no, no, NO! _

He bent his head, pressing it against Sam's chest, ignoring the torrid flush against his cheek as he listened for his brother's heartbeat. It was there, beating fast and unevenly, matching the staggered breaths that lifted and dropped Sam's chest arrhythmically.

_Goddammit!_

"Sammy! Can you hear me?" he almost yelled in Sam's face, fists bunching his brother's shirt and dragging him forward, the dull thud of Sam's head hitting the passenger door of the car curling his stomach up and filling his veins with ice-water.

He pulled again, adrenalin giving him the strength to lift Sam forward, away from the door. Reaching up past him, Dean yanked at the handle, the familiar squeal of the hinges focussing his attention and diverting his panic.

_Not on my watch._

"C'mon, Sam, gotta get you to a hospital," he muttered, shifting his position to get his arms under Sam's and lift him into the seat. "It's gonna be okay, I swear it is, gonna be okay. You'll be fine."

He had no idea of whether he talking to himself or his brother. He pushed Sam's legs up and got them in, slamming the door shut and sliding over the hood, fingers scrabbling with the keys on the ring for the ignition key as he pulled open the driver's door and threw himself onto the seat. The key went in and he wrenched it and the car's low throbbing growl managed to push aside the fear for a fractional second.

"Don't you leave me now, Sam," he said, hauling the wheel around, gravel spitting from the tyres. "Don't you dare leave me now!"

Crowley was sitting in the church, chained to the chair. The thought came and went and he filed it away with the other things he'd have to deal with as soon as the crisis was over. Just a crisis. Just a trip to the hospital. No big deal. He'd make it. He had to make it.

_The light had faded_, he thought, his foot hard against the floor and the ball aching because he was pushing harder against the pedal but it couldn't go any further down. The light had _faded_ from Sam's arms and his brother had looked at him in wonder at the peace that had filled his soul. But the trial hadn't been completed. The contract hadn't been fulfilled. Was this the backlash? Punishment for gypping God out of a sacrifice? Was the sonofabitch going to take Sam after all?

Shoving the thoughts aside, he concentrated on the road, his eyes cutting to the right from time to time, narrowing in on the thin skin at the side of his brother's neck where he could see the rapid flutter of Sam's pulse.

He could feel the goddamned heat radiating outward from here. Fever or something else? Another bad thought. Right at the intersection, then the next left and he'd be five miles from town. He changed down for the turn and up again, the rev counter climbing and the engine screaming as he shifted down for the left.

_It was how many times I let you down._

He flinched back from the wheel as the memory came back, knuckles whitening. _Goddamnit, Sam, it wasn't disappointment in you_, he thought wildly, superstitiously looking for anything to tie his brother to life, any bargain to be made, any deal to be struck. _I was the one responsible for you, for raising you, for teaching you the wrong way. That was me. Just fucking me_.

The blue and white sign glowed in the night and the tyres squealed and smoked as he apexed the turn toward it, sliding out sideways to land the car precisely in front of the Emergency Room doors. He was out and around the other side as the engine stalled and died, ignoring the man who ran toward him, waving his arms.

"Hey! Hey you can't park there –"

Sam was a deadweight and Dean closed his eyes, letting the panic come, letting it bring its flood of adrenalin to his muscles as he lifted.

"Get me a fucking doctor!" he roared at the guy, shifting his position under his brother and straightening his legs. Christ, but he could feel the heat fluxing through Sam, an inferno inside of him, burning out of control. "GET ME A FUCKING DOCTOR! _NOW!_"

The parking attendant blanched and ran for the doors as two orderlies came out the other way, a gurney between them.

"What happened?" one snapped at him, taking Sam's shoulders as the other caught his legs.

"I don't know!" Dean ground out, following them down the hall, his hand locked around Sam's as he forced his panic back down under control. "It's like, uh, a fever or something, he's burning up and he passed out."

"Stand back," a female voice said from behind him and he felt a small hand close around his arm. "Sir, you have to give us some room."

The orderlies transferred Sam from the cart to the bed and at once there were several people in the close confines of the room, cutting away his brother's clothing, attaching electrodes to his chest and forehead and temples, inserting needles, covering his face with a mask … Dean backed away to the wall but stayed in the room, his hands closed into fists and his heart thudding at the base of his throat. _Don't you dare leave, Sam_.

* * *

><p><em><strong>One day later. Glenwood Memorial Hospital, Randolph, NY.<strong>_

Dean stared at the film on the lit box on the wall, light-headed from hunger and lack of sleep but able to make out the brighter masses that showed clearly within the confines of his brother's skull.

"The MRI showed massive internal burns affecting many of the major organs; oxygen to the brain has been severely deprived and we're seeing a swelling in the frontal lobe. The coma is the body doing everything in its limited power to protect itself from further harm," the doctor explained, uneasily watching the stone-faced man walk around him and back to the side of the bed.

"This wasn't supposed to happen," Dean said, looking down at the unmoving body in front of him.

"Mr Johnson, we've done everything that we can do for your brother," the doctor continued, his voice low, and sympathetic despite the sense he had the man he was talking to was walking, talking danger with a capital 'D'. "At the moment, he is stable, but the prognosis is that the injuries will worsen. He's on life-support now, and the EEG is showing some brain activity but if his internal conditions deteriorate –"

"He'll be dead," Dean finished the sentence, turning to look at him, his face cool and expressionless.

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry."

Dean nodded, wiping a hand over his face as the doctor left. _No medical options_. Well, he thought, looking around for the bathroom, they'd faced that one before. And had beat it. He shook off the memories of how his brother had done that, back when it'd been him lying in a hospital bed with a prognosis of a life cut short. The small ensuite had a toilet, a cramped shower with a multitude of handrails at various anchor points on the wall, and a basin. Turning on the cold tap, he dipped his hands under the flowing water and sank his face into them, needing the wake-up, the slap of the cold water to get his thoughts in order.

Lifting his head as he turned off the tap, he looked in the mirror, noting dispassionately that he looked like refried crap, as usual. Shadows and hollows and lines etched in and the stubble over his cheeks and jaw because he shaved when he remembered or it got too itchy and not otherwise. When he met his own gaze, he knew what he was going to have to do. Didn't make the prospect any more appealing but he was out of options.

"Just rest, Sam," he said to the unconscious man on the bed as he came out of the bathroom and headed for the door. "I'll be back in a minute, okay?"

The corridor outside the room was busy, and for a moment he stood there, watching the people moving about their business, walking around him as if he were an ill-placed piece of furniture, their gazes looking elsewhere. They'd been on the outside of … all this … for a long time and most of the time he didn't notice how people – normal, regular people – just kind of veered around them, not looking, not noticing. The need to make someone notice, notice his brother's dying, notice the jagged pain in his chest, notice _them_, was strong. But habit was stronger and he stepped a little closer to the wall, his gaze sweeping past doctors, and nurses and orderlies and patients.

_Chapel._

The notice was small and discreet, the arrow pointing to a corridor to the left. _The last act of a desperate man_, he thought sourly, turning toward it. With everything they knew, everything they'd been through, he should've had more up his sleeve than that.

Four or five people were sitting in the narrow, high-ceilinged room, heads bowed and hands clasped together as they begged for help from an entity who existed but had long since stopped listening. At the end of the chapel, a stained glass window let coloured light through from ceiling to floor, spilling over the altar and along the cramped aisle.

_You said there would be a job for me to do_, Dean thought, looking up at the figure picked out in the mosaic of glass. _You said that it wasn't my quest and you didn't say any fucking thing about anyone dying!_

He took the pew at the back, wrapping one hand around the other and tightening both, aware that he was shaking, his emotions held so tightly in check that he could hardly breathe.

_Cas, you there?_ He looked around the chapel, repressing his frustration when no soft beat of wings filled the air. _Sammy's hurt … you knew that … it's worse now. I don't know if you can fix it, can heal it, but … _

He hesitated, remembering the way the angel had disappeared, his fury at him at the time.

… _whatever you did up there, Cas, or didn't do … that doesn't matter, you know that, right? We can work it out … just … the docs can't do anything about Sam … and I can't find a way to get him back … Cas …_

He swallowed, his throat tight and sore. He needed the angel. But he only ever needed him when his brother's life hung in the balance. And he only ever needed him when he couldn't fix it himself. What did that say? About him? About the angel?

… _I need you to help Sam … need you to get him back for me … I need … _

Need someone to trust again, he thought, shoulders slumping as he finally admitted it. Need someone to notice that I'm still fucking alive and I'm hanging on here by the ends of my fingernails.

… please_, man, I need some help here … Cas?_

Someone coughed, softly, but it echoed in the space, bouncing off the hard walls and floor and rebounding to the high ceiling. No rustle of angel wings. No flap of trenchcoat or gravelly voice behind him, pitched low for his hearing. No angel.

_Fuck._

Dropping his head into his hands, he faced the unpalatable fact that he was in the same position, exactly the same position, as he'd been when Jake had stabbed his brother and left him to die in Cold Oak. _I'm just supposed to let you die?_ The memory of that crushing realisation came back to him and he shuddered, crossing his arms against the pew in front of him and leaning his forehead against them, his eyes screwed tightly shut.

The angel had ignored his requests before. Hadn't answered him in Purgatory. Had heard but hadn't come when he'd asked for help for Sam as the toll of trials had worsened. Cas had been under Naomi's control then, but it didn't change things, did it? He hadn't helped then.

"Screw it," he said to himself softly. If he had no friends, no one to turn to, he would go public.

_Bad idea_. The thought was instant and he acknowledged it. It was a bad idea. But it was the only card he had left to play. He drew in a deep breath, as much to steady himself as to give him the seconds to think of what he was to ask.

_Okay, listen up … this one goes out to any angel with their ears on … this is _Dean Winchester_ … and I … need your help … the deal's this – Glenwood Memorial Hospital, Randolph, New York. The first one that can help me gets my help in return and you know that ain't nothin' … it's no secret that we haven't always seen eye-to-eye … but you know that I'm good for my word and … I … I wouldn't be asking if I wasn't needing … so …_

_Such a _bad_ fucking idea_, the small voice whispered against his prayer and he felt his throat close up tight. _Too bad_. He'd wear whatever came out of it. He had to.

* * *

><p>The throaty rumble of the Impala's engine, the low rasp of the tyres over the asphalt road, they were a familiar backdrop, familiar and comforting as Sam looked at his laptop, balanced on his knees.<p>

"This makes no sense, I mean, how many angels were falling? Hundreds? Thousands?" he said, turning to his brother in frustration. "And nobody sees anything? This is …" He looked back at the screen. "Look at this, they're calling it a meteor shower. Seriously!?"

He shut the lid and huffed out a disparaging exhale, turning to look at his brother when he realised Dean hadn't responded at all. "What's going on, man? You okay?"

"Me? Yea-yes, I'm fine," Dean answered, his hands tightening around the wheel. "It's just we gotta –"

"Gotta major friggin' crap-fest on our hands," Sam cut him off, snorting slightly as he turned away.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Dean muttered, mostly to himself.

"Thousands of super-powered dicks touching down and we got no idea where to start," Sam continued, missing the comment.

Dean's mouth compressed. "Angels aren't our problem right now, okay? Or demons – or Metatron or whatever the hell happened to Cas –"

"Why? Because we hugged it out in that church and now we're gunna go – go to Disneyland?" Sam laughed slightly, brow creasing as he saw Dean's profile harden. "Dean, you said it yourself, we're not gonna sleep until this is done."

"I know."

"So what's the problem?"

Sam stared at him, wondering if he was going to answer. He knew that almost-irritated expression on Dean's face. Whatever it was, he really didn't want to talk about it. But he was going to, he was just figuring out how to start.

"You."

Dean didn't give him time to ask, glancing at him and looking back at the road. "Look, there's no easy way to say this, okay? Somethin' happened back there. In the church. I don't know _what_, I don't know _why_ –" he paused, eyes closing briefly. "You're dying, Sam."

Sam heard the words. Heard them clearly. He couldn't make them come into context. Was this some new level of bad taste Dean had descended to? Some bizarro prank that Dean thought was funny? Why did everything … including his brother … feel slightly _notright_?

"Just because you're dyin' doesn't mean you're dead, okay?" Dean said, turning his head and catching sight of the expression on Sam's face. "We've jemmied our way out of worse."

"Dean … out of worse? You selling your soul for me? Or me taking to you to that preacher, with a reaper who took someone else instead of you?" Sam shook his head, wondering what the hell Dean was talking about. "None of those were –"

"You're not _dead_, we're going to fight this! I just need some time is all. I gotta plan – you just gotta hang on, you hear me?" Dean cut him off sharply.

Shaking his head, Sam agreed, his mouth turning up in a derisive curve. "Absolutely."

Hearing the tone, Dean flicked a sideways look at him, mouth tightening as he saw the smile. "You think I'm lying?"

"Pretty much, yeah."

"Hey, you understand that we're not really in this car right now – we're in your head. And you are in coma, and you are dying," Dean said, his voice crisply clear.

Sam looked away, letting it sink in. He didn't feel any different. Nothing looked any different. Except … something was _notright_.

"How do you know that?" he asked abruptly, uneasily.

"Because I'm you, and you're you, all of this," Dean said, waving expansively at the car's interior, "is you. We're in your head!"

"You're serious."

His brother gave him his patented 'ya-think' slight eye-roll and he let out his breath.

"The whole reason I _stopped_ doing the trials, was _not_ to die," Sam said, biting out each word.

"That contract, the burning out of the demon blood …" Dean said slowly. "It had a price that wasn't on the tag. There's nothing we can do about that – yet. Right now, we gotta fight this, man. You gotta hang on."

Sam sighed. His brother would fight, until the last drop of blood leaked out of his veins, until his last breath – he wouldn't, he _couldn't_ let him die. "Okay. So what's the plan?"

"I'm working on it," Dean said, hunching a bit further over the wheel.

"What does that mean?" Sam frowned at him. "I mean, I'm kind of … dying here, apparently –"

"It means I'm working on it, alright?" Dean cut him off brusquely.

It meant that Dean didn't have a fucking clue what was killing him or how to fix it, Sam thought uneasily. And if his brother didn't know … could he really be saved?

_Do you want to be saved?_

The thought slid in, smooth as a knife, and he straightened up in the car seat. Maybe he wasn't supposed to be. Maybe this was the sacrifice he was supposed to make all along?

"The thing is, if I'm dying, and I believe you, I do," Sam said hesitantly, trying to find the words that could describe that feeling. "But if you're you, and you're really me, and you're the part of me that wants to fight to live …"

"Yes. I have no idea what you just said, but continue," Dean remarked as Sam paused to get it straight in his own mind.

"But if … you don't have any idea how … I'm supposed to fight, then … am I supposed to fighting at all?"

"Are you serious?" Dean looked at him, brows already drawing together.

"Hell yes, he's serious," the familiar and whiskey-roughened voice came from the back seat. "And if you ask me, I think the kid's gotta good point."

Sam and Dean looked back. Bobby Singer sat in the middle of the back seat, cap shadowing his face as always, looking from Sam to Dean.

"Sam wants to die and you think he's gotta point?!" Dean snarled incredulously at the man behind him.

"Okay, I don't want to die," Sam interjected, seeing where this was going. "I asked if maybe I was supposed to –"

"Shut up, Sam," Dean snapped, turning to look in the back. "You – go. Oh, and before you throw me under the bus, you're welcome for the Hell rescue."

"Hey! First of all, you didn't rescue jack, halfwit, Sam did," Bobby said.

"Oh, so you two just strolled out of Purgatory, no effort at all from anyone else?" Dean grated, the car speeding up as his foot went down involuntarily.

"Can you two just can –"

"Shut up, Sam!" Dean looked at Bobby in the mirror. "You gonna go with that, old man? I had nothing to fucking do with getting you out?"

"Right, alright!" Bobby gave in abruptly. "You killed your vampire buddy to get us out."

Sam looked at Dean's mouth thinning. "Bobby, don't."

"Second of all," Bobby ignored the order and leaned forward. "Sam, you're in a coma. Now, suck as that may, sometimes that's just the way things go."

"What are you talking about? There's always a way, you taught us that!" Dean said furiously.

"Enough! Both of you!" Sam said, raising his voice. "I can't hear myself think!"

Dean looked at Sam. "You're not actually buying this are you?"

"Excuse me! Are you dead?" Bobby snapped back. "Cos I am, and maybe I'm here because _I'm_ the part of Sam that actually knows what he's talking about!"

"No, no, no, no! I didn't bleed and die and sacrifice my whole fucking life so you could give up the minute things looked too hard, Sam," Dean said, the car accelerating again. "That's not happening!"

"So you gave up everything for your brother?" Bobby said coldly. "Who asked you to do that, huh, Dean? Wasn't that your decision?"

Sam winced inwardly as he saw his brother's expression. "Bobby –"

"Hey, I'm in the front seat, because Sam put me here because he wants to fight, right?" Dean turned to look at Sam and jerked sideways as Bobby appeared next to him, jammed in between the two brothers.

"Well, that just got real uncomfortable," Bobby said, glancing at Dean as he turned and put his hand on Sam's shoulder. "See ya, Dean."

"Sam! Don't you fucking –"

The car and his brother disappeared and Sam and Bobby were standing in a forest, sunlight dappling the ground as it shone through the canopy, the silence, broken only by birdsong from the treetops, deep and welling and … peaceful.

"Yep, yep, yep," Bobby said, taking a deep breath and looking around. "Am I right?"

Sam looked at him and down at the ground. "Honestly, Bobby, I don't know what's right."

"Let's walk."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Longmont, Colorado<strong>_

Castiel walked slowly along the narrow two-lane highway, feeling hot, tired, and noticing with an increasing alarm that the muscles of his legs were beginning to ache and he thought that the shoe on his left foot didn't fit as well as it should have because he was perceiving a small burning pain on the heel.

_No Grace_, he thought, head bowing as he put one foot in front of the other, plodding forward. No Grace and no wings and no thread of connection to Heaven at all.

And what did that add up to? _Human_.

He sighed and looked up, the highway stretching out in front of him with nothing but towering trees to either side. He didn't bother to look back because the view was precisely the same in that direction as well. He was somewhere, but he had no idea where and he was, to all intents and purposes, not only human, but lost.

The voices hit him at the same time, drowning his thoughts with their babble, here and there one rising more clearly or more shrilly or filled with anger, but the rest crashing over him like a wave and he pivoted in place, staring at the canopies of the trees, at the sky, disoriented by the flux of them as they overwhelmed his mind.

_Fallingi'mfallinghelpmei'mAFRAIDnowhatishappeningi'mafraidfallingafraidstopitthisisn'tusthereisnohopenoheavensoafraidwhoAREyouwhereamifatherourfatherandbrothershaveFORSAKENushelploststopcan'tfindmywayhelpi'mfallinghelpmei'mafraidnowhatishappeningi'mafraidfallingafraidstopitthisisn'tusthereisnoHOPEnoheavensoafraidwhoareyouwhereamifatherourfatherandbrothershaveforsakenushelpLOSTstopcan'tfindmywayhelpi'mfallinghelpmeHELP!_

Eyes narrowed, hands lifted uselessly against his ears, Cas heard the horn at the last second, spinning around and seeing the pickup veering as he stumbled into its path, and he threw himself to the shoulder, landing in the gravel on his hands and knees, hearing the screech of the tyres as they bit down under the pressure of the brakes.

The pickup stopped and the driver's door swung open as Cas looked down at the sticky mess of blood on his grazed palms. Another reminder of being human. It stung, and he processed the pain through a haze of shock.

"Hey, mister, you okay?" the driver asked, walking toward him as he rolled awkwardly to his knees and stood.

"It hurts."

"What the hell were you doing in the middle of the road?"

Cas looked at him briefly, then around the trees. The voices were gone. "I heard angels."

"Mebbe we better get you some water," the driver said, looking at him more closely.

"I don't drink water." Cas looked back at him. "A phone. Do you have a phone?"

"No signal," the man told him, gesturing vaguely at the mountains surrounding them. "How 'bout a lift?"

"Yes." Riding in a car, that would be more comfortable than walking. And faster. He needed to talk to Dean. Needed to make sure the Winchesters were alright. The anxiety about them had been growing without him even noticing it, until now.

"How far is it to the nearest town?" Cas asked, getting into the passenger seat of the truck.

"Not so much a town," the driver said, turning the key and starting the engine. "Wide space in the road, but they got a diner and a phone."

"That will be sufficient, I believe." Dean could come and get him. He had a car. "Where are we? Precisely?"

The driver glanced at him, an eyebrow cocked. "Colorado, this is Longmont, Colorado."

"Colorado," Cas said, rolling the name in his mouth. "Is it far from New York?"

"Uh, yeah, it's a fair hike," the driver said, nodding. "'Bout fifteen hundred miles."

"Would it take a long time to drive there, in a car?" the angel asked, wondering if Dean would drive that far just to get him. He might be able to wire money, as Bobby had, when he'd found himself in hospital.

"Couple of days, taking it easy."

"Ah. Thank you," Cas said. He would definitely need money then.

The thought of the angels intruded again, their voices so painful to hear, lost and frightened and not knowing what they were doing. He should be focussing on them, he realised slowly. Dean and Sam would be alright, they knew how to survive. His brothers and sisters did not, not down here, not without their power.

They came around the bend and Cas saw the small row of buildings on the left-hand side of the road. The truck pulled up and he got out, looking at the signs that indicated each building's purpose. He saw a sign with the shape of a telephone on it on one very small structure.

"Hey," the driver said, and he turned around, looking at the notes and coins the man held out to him.

"No, I can't take your money," the angel said, shaking his head.

"It's for the phone, and, uh, a sandwich, if they have one," the driver told him. Cas looked at the money the man put into his hand. The phone, he remembered, cost money.

"Take care, mister, and, uh, word to the wise?"

"Yes?" Cas leaned forward. That he could use.

"Don't tell people you're hearing angels, okay?"

"Uh, yes, okay."

He turned away as the pickup moved forward and closed his fingers around the money in his hand. He vaguely recalled advice from Dean along those lines, sometime in the past.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Glenwood Memorial Hospital, Randolph, New York<strong>_

Dean looked at his watch, checking the time against both the wall clock in the room and the small digital clock on the nightstand. All three agreed that it'd been four hours since he'd sent his offer _(angels don't make deals)_ into the aether and so far, nada.

The soft knock at the door was barely audible over the humming and quiet beeping of the machines surrounding Sam and he looked up as the door opened, a small, dark-haired woman in a mismatched outfit of brown pants, blue floral blouse and bottle-green cardigan walked in, glancing first at Sam then lifting her gaze to meet his.

"Hi," he said, pushing himself off the window ledge and stepping forward. "I'm just gonna break the ice here – are you an angel?"

She let out a disbelieving little laugh, her expression transparently uncertain as she seemed to debate taking him seriously or not. His face was so full of hope.

"Sometimes, I wish I were," she told him. "My name is Kim Schultz and I'm a grief counsellor, here at the hospital."

The hope vanished instantly, his gaze dropping. "Right, uh, yeah, sorry," he said, lifting a shoulder in a slight shrug. "I'm just tired."

She nodded, looking at Sam. The report that had been left in her tray had said that the patient was this man's brother. There wasn't much of a resemblance, although she'd often found more similarity in people when they were awake, animated.

"Well," Dean's voice hardened a little. "With all due respect, I'm not grieving – not yet at least, so…"

That was a response she knew well and she matched his tone, her voice firming. "I'm afraid that as hard as this may be, this might be a good time to talk." She glanced back down at Sam. "About what's going to happen to your brother."

Dean looked at her, repressing the surge of anger he could feel at both the intrusion and the subtlety of her certainty that he _would_ be grieving, in a very short time.

_Not on my watch, lady!_

"Look, I'm sure you're a nice person and that you mean well," he said, watching her look away, that certainty dissolving slightly at his tone. "But, I haven't given up on him yet, and I'm not about to start now."

She nodded, accepting the tacit rebuke. "Mr Johnson, I understand and I believe in miracles and hope for them, as much as the next person, but I also know how to read an EEG, and unless you have a direct line to the angels you were looking for –?"

"Yeah," Dean said, his anger vanishing with her sympathy, with the careful way she spoke to him. No one else believed there was a way. "No, I, uh, guess I don't."

No angels. He let himself absorb that knowledge, took it in, looked at it. And another thought stirred, in deeper memories. There was _always_ a way around. If no angels would help … the other side was still available. Better than available. Downright fucking handy.

"But I might have something better," he said, mostly to himself, his gaze going past the counsellor to the door as he started moving.

"Sir, I can come back at a better time if you have –"

"Yeah," Dean said, accelerating as he rounded the bed and reached the doorway in another long-reaching step. "You do that."

* * *

><p>The stairs to the parking garage were at the end of the hall and he lengthened his stride, hitting the door with one hand and half-running down the echoing concrete stairwell. How the hell had he forgotten that particular ace, he wondered, half-bemused, half-angry with himself. The door swung open easily when he reached the bottom of the stairs and he looked around at the squeal of tyres over the smooth concrete floor, tracking the leaving car.<p>

No one else was in sight, and he knocked on the Impala's trunk lid. "Crowley, listen up, you sonofabitch," he growled. "One for yes, two for no. You alive?"

The trunk remained obstinately silent and he could see the demon's scowl in his mind's eye as Crowley thought over his options. He wasn't going to give the demon a chance to think of a way to screw him over.

"C'mon, don't be a pouter," he said, rewarded with a single thunk from the inside a second later. "There we go."

He was straightening up, reviewing exactly how to get what he needed from the now-defunct King of Hell when an arm whipped around his neck and the ice-cold edge of the sword touched his skin.

"You prayed?" a voice grated from behind him.

"Yeah," Dean said, his eyes cutting to one side, seeing the arm belonging to the hand holding the sword and a part of a shoulder in his periphery. "For help."

"Yes," the angel nodded, moving further into his vision, the sword pressing harder against his neck. "You'll be helping me."

_What the fuck_, he barely had time to think before the hand holding his shoulder yanked him almost upright and smashed him face-down into the trunk lid.

"If you lie to me, _Dean Winchester_, I will rip your throat out," the angel said precisely, putting his weight onto the arm holding him down. "Where's Castiel?"

"Who's asking?" Dean said through one side of his mouth, the other side being mashed between his teeth and the car's trunk. His ribs were creaking a little as the angel pressed him down harder, and he felt the sheet metal buckle slightly under the bones of his face.

"Try every angel who was ejected from their home," the angel said coldly.

"Oh." Dean grimaced. "Oh, well, in that case, I have no clue."

He felt the fingers on the back of his neck tighten and he was lifted and slammed onto the shiny black trunk, the first blow taken on brow and cheek, the next more on the jaw. _Fuck_, he thought dazedly, _hold it together_, forcing his eyes to stay open, his ear ringing furiously, and grey mists shrouding the edges of his vision.

"Easy there, my brother," another voice said from behind him and the grip on his neck loosened. "This young man has prayed for our assistance. Are we creatures of wrath? Or of compassion and guidance? I would argue the latter."

Listening to the soft voice of the second angel, Dean hoped like hell he was twice the size of the first one. His head was ringing like a friggin' church bell and one eye was definitely not working as per the manufacturer's specifications, flattening out what he could see and filming it in pale shades of red. He was also, he realised with a spurt of irritation, gonna have to beat out the indentations of his face from the car's trunk.

"Forgive me – brother," the first angel said, his tone sounding anything but contrite. "I don't recognise you."

"I would be happy to make your re-acquaintance," the second angel promised. "After you disarm."

The pressure disappeared from Dean's neck and he risked rolling his still-working eye around, catching a glimpse of a tall, broad-shouldered man standing to one side, his lean, weathered face watching the dick who must have been behind him with a wariness he silently applauded.

The first angel swung a fist blindingly fast, taking the second in the jaw and knocking him back. Dean watched as the second angel turned back and straightened up, his hand probing lightly at the area that'd been hit.

"Come now," the second angel said, with remarkable patience. "Is that any way to treat a brother, injured in the Fall?"

Angel Number One swung the sword toward him and there was a flurry of action as the second blocked the strike, his fist striking back snake-fast.

Dean slid down the trunk a little, looking around for something to cold-cock the dick with.

"You still alive, Dean?" Crowley's voice murmured from inside the trunk. "One for yes, two for no."

Dean grimaced at the car and lifted a hand, wiping at his right eye, relieved when he realised that the red tinge in his vision was from a small split over his brow, not from the damned eyeball. He looked at the angels, fighting in front of him and felt himself tense at the sledgehammer blows, given and received. The memory of Cas, pounding the crap out of him in a dark alley, brought a visceral shock, his body remembering the power in the angel's punch. He'd lasted about three minutes, he thought, before his body had shut everything down.

The bright clatter of the sword falling dragged his attention back to the here and now. Picking it up, Dean moved up behind the dick angel in the suit as he threw the other one into the side of a car. _One shot, make it count_. Reaching out, he gripped the shoulder, bracing himself as he thrust the sword straight through the angel's back and into the heart.

Pure, white light poured from the mouth and eyes of the vessel, eye-searingly bright. Turning his head away and screwing his eyes shut, Dean twisted the sword, angling it down. Then the light was gone, and he let the body fall, keeping a tight grip on the sword as he looked at the second angel, slumped against the car's side.

"Who're you?" he asked shortly, lifting the point of the sword to emphasise the question.

"It's not important," the angel replied, clinging to the car's door and looking up at him. "You're Dean Winchester, and I heard your prayer. And I am here to help."

His eyelids fluttered, and Dean watched his eyes roll back slightly as they closed completely, the angel sliding slowly down the side of the car and crumpling on the ground.

"Okay," he muttered, looking around the parking lot. One body to hide, one unconscious angel to drag somewhere private for questioning, a hospital full of people. No fucking problem.

"Dean!" Crowley's voice was muffled and breathless inside the trunk.

"Relax, you're back on the bench," Dean said, rapping the lid twice as he walked around the car to get a tarp from the backseat.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Longmont, Colorado<strong>_

"I know you."

Cas turned to see a woman standing and staring at him, big blue eyes wide in a face of doll-like prettiness, framed by long dark hair.

"I don't think so," he answered, hunching his shoulders in his coat as he swung away.

"Castiel."

He stopped, turning to look back at her.

"We met in Heaven," she said, a soft tremor in her voice betraying her nervousness. "My name is Hael."

"You're an angel."

"Am I?" she asked him, her eyes cutting away, her hand rising in a helpless gesture. "Am I still an angel without my wings? Without a connection to Heaven?"

Cas looked around the damp parking lot. "You will always be an angel, even here," he said to her, motioning to the raised kerb beside the storefront. "What happened to you?"

They sat on the kerb and she looked away, looked inward at what she remembered. "It was a normal day. And then … then I was falling and my wings … they were burning."

Cas bowed his head. The pain had been endless and then it had gone, when he'd landed on the forest floor. Everything had just gone. He remembered feeling cold.

"How could that happen?" Hael turned to look at him and he lifted his head.

"I don't know."

Metatron had used his Grace, somehow. He remembered that much. A spell? What possible spell could cast out every angel from the celestial plane, together? Hael was looking at him intently.

"Your Grace … it's gone?"

"Yes," he said. "I can still hear our brothers and sisters."

"Then you've heard them talking of you?" she asked him, her voice dropping. "What happened? What happened to you?"

Castiel debated telling her – everything. From the moment he'd listened to the demon to the last minutes he could remember in Heaven. He hadn't been able to tell his friend. Not all of it. Too ashamed of what he'd done. Too confused by the memory alterations of Naomi. Too lost in himself.

"I forgot what I was," he said, not looking at her, looking down at the asphalt at his feet. "Forgot my purpose. Forgot everything I'd ever believed in."

"How?" she asked, and he heard the disbelief in her voice. "How is that possible?"

"I met a human. A man."

It was, he thought, even now, almost impossible to describe the impact that meeting had had. To describe the certainty that had flowed from the man, a certainty in what he did, what he felt, what he thought, particularly when he considered the circumstances of their meeting. Not the first meeting on this plane, but the one that had occurred before that.

Tainted and beaten and close to broken, the soul he'd been sent to lift out of Hell's stinking pit had been pitiful. It had clung, as most souls did, to the memories it'd had of itself in life, and he'd seen a man, emaciated and scarred, despair etched into every line of his face, radiating pain and desolation.

There'd only been an echo of that, when he'd seen him later in the flesh of his body, face to face in a building covered in summonings and wards. That echo had been filled with a fear, and a self-loathing, that he had been unable to understand. God had commanded the saving of this soul. That should have been enough. Enough to know he'd been cleansed. Enough to know he'd been forgiven. It'd taken the angel a long time to realise that the man would never forgive himself, that deep within the memories that had not been wiped out, what he'd done lived on, and he saw it as a stain he could never remove, never be free of.

He told Hael of the treasons of Raphael and Uriel and Zachariah, disjointedly, hesitantly. The collusion of Heaven and Hell had been shocking enough to crack his foundations, to shake his belief that what he did, and what he was told, was pure and noble. He told her it had been that man who had pried apart those millennia-old beliefs further, forcing him to see past the lies, to see to the truth. And forcing him to act, of his own will, to take responsibility for the flaws that were all too apparent to him when he looked at his superiors.

Every memory he had of the last few years was filled with the humans. Filled with their inability to give up or surrender to a greater power. Filled with the examples of true selflessness, of fighting against insurmountable odds with no more weapons than their own courage, their own belief in each other. And that had been tested to its extremes so many times.

"Lucifer didn't realise what our Father had given humanity," he said slowly. He hadn't been there for that final battle, the archangel's arrogant fury against the human's love. It'd been Sam who'd told him, much later, of Dean's refusal to die, refusal to quit. "He was defeated by something he'd never even thought of, a strength he regarded as a weakness."

"But God brought you back," Hael said, her voice almost dreamy.

Castiel looked at her, wondering if she'd even realised the import of what he'd just said. "Yes, he brought me back."

"Why?"

"I don't know," he admitted. To heal Dean? To continue a line of destiny that had kept worsening, days becoming darker and darker as he'd struggled to find a way to defeat his brothers from undoing what those men had sacrificed everything for? He still didn't know.

Dean's face, when he'd touched him and healed all those physical injuries, had shown, for an instant, that nothing had been healed inside. Not his past, nor his despair, nor the agony of knowing what had happened to his brother and where he was. There was nothing in his touch that could reach through and heal those things. Not all the power of Heaven could heal his heartache. And when he'd gone to Indiana, to begin a new life, the last thing he'd ever wanted to do was ask anything more of that man, ever again.

So, he told Hael, pride, Lucifer's sin, had led him down a path that he should never have trodden. Pride and the belief that he could defeat an archangel and keep the world safe, as the brothers had done, somehow.

He'd been wrong, he said to her. So unbelievably wrong that he'd wished for death, for not-being, so many times in the days and weeks and months that had followed that he no longer considered himself angel at all. Angels did not despair. Angels did not wish for death.

"You were doing the best you could," she told him, her voice uncertain. "Doing what you thought was right."

His laugh was strangled, and he coughed in the damp air as he tried to repress it. Dean had said it. He always tried to do what was right. He had never managed it yet.

Hester had told Dean that his touch had corrupted. Of all the things he'd wished his friend had never had to hear, never had touch him, that one was near the top of the list. It wasn't true, and yet, in a way, it was. He'd learned from the man, learned of friendship and courage, of sacrifice and honour, and had willingly followed him on a quioxical quest to save the world, not once but twice, because of that corruption. And Dean had known that there was truth in her words. Had felt it.

"My pride knew no bounds when I took the souls from Purgatory," he told the angel sitting next to him. "They were … not like the souls of Heaven. They were foul and filled with rage, with darkness and malice. And there were more than the souls of the monsters locked into that realm."

He had never worked out if it had been the Leviathans who had driven him to Heaven, to slay the angels in their thousands, to lay waste to the celestial plane. The vessel could not hold the souls, and his mind, his pure harmonic frequency had been corrupted as well. He had killed, wantonly, across two dimensions, and when the humans had opened the door and tried to free him, he had been subsumed in a guilt that had no bounds.

"You were resurrected a second time," Hael said softly, watching his face. He could feel her curiosity, unangel-like but there.

"It was a chance," he said heavily. "To atone for what I'd done, to put it right."

He knew he could not have done that without the brothers. He couldn't face himself, let alone anyone else. Killing Roman had been his only chance to begin atoning for what he'd done. And it wasn't enough. And with his decision to remain in Purgatory, to serve penance for his actions and choices, he had hurt his friend again.

He pulled in a deep breath, the mistiness of the parking lot tickling his lungs. "Metatron did this," he told the angel, pushing aside the memories as he thought of what he had to do. He needed to talk to Dean. "Cast us all down and closed the gates so that we would know exile as he had."

"There are those who will not believe that, Castiel," Hael said to him, her eyes narrowing a little as she looked at him. "Those who believe that you are to blame, again."

"I must call my friend," Cas said. "He will – he'll know where to start."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Glenwood Memorial Hospital, Randolph, New York<strong>_

Dean watched Ezekiel return to consciousness, take in the flames leaping around him. He glanced at the basement doors, uncomfortably aware that this interrogation was under a severe time constraint. He'd taken out the floor's smoke detectors, but sooner or later someone was gonna notice that the doors were locked.

"You wanna help?" he said to the angel. "Start with a name."

The angel rolled to one knee, in the precise centre of the circle. "Ezekiel."

"Alright, Ezekiel, how do I know that you aren't hunting me or Cas, like the other angels?"

"Oh, I'm sure that there are many angels who are," Ezekiel said, his gaze moving around the room slowly. "Many more who are on their way here, most likely."

Dean looked at the flames. Cas had said that holy oil cut the angels off from Heaven, from their powers. "How do you know that?"

"You put out an open prayer, like that, you must –"

"I must really be desperate," Dean finished, meeting his gaze steadily through the fire. Well, he had been. He still was.

The angel exhaled softly, getting to his feet and turning to face him squarely.

"Believe it – or not. Some of us still really do believe in our mission, to protect and to guide," Ezekiel said quietly. "And that means we believe in Castiel. And in you."

Dean brushed that off, ignoring the stab at the offer inherent in the words. He couldn't afford to let anything warm and fuzzy through, not now. "You said you were hurt during the Fall?"

Ezekiel nodded. "I was," he admitted readily. "And tangling with my brother back there did me no favours."

He inclined his head as he watched Dean's mouth compress, the human transparently mistrustful. "But what strength I have left, I offer to you."

_If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is_, Dean thought uneasily. On the other hand, it was also probably a good idea to leave the gift horse's mouth alone. Especially if the angel could heal Sam.

_When Cas said _he_ couldn't?_ The small, derisive voice in his head asked tartly. _When he told you it was beyond him?_

He turned away, walking to the wall and grabbing the bucket of sand that was a part of the floor's fire-fighting equipment. Tipping it up, he walked around the circle, dowsing the flames with it.

_Only game in town._

* * *

><p>Dean watched the angel reach out, his arms crossed tightly over his chest to prevent himself from moving. <em>Trust him or don't, but you know the way these mooks do this, it's through touch<em>.

"You still able to cure things?" he asked, his voice hoarse, and low with the need to hide what he felt. "After the Fall?"

Ezekiel laid his palm on Sam's chest, eyes half-closing as he reached into the biological structure of the body.

"Yes," Ezekiel answered distractedly, listening to the man under his hand. "I should be, but … he's so weak."

Looking at his brother, Dean shut that pronouncement out. He knew it, but he didn't want to know it. Didn't want to think about it. His phone rang, shrill in the near-silence of the room and he pulled it out, frowning as he looked at the unfamiliar number.

"Who is this?"

"Dean –"

The voice was familiar, and he glanced at Ezekiel. "Can't talk in here, the machines," he muttered, holding the phone against his chest as he walked to the door and pulled it open, moving down the corridor.

"Cas, what the hell's going on?"

"Metatron … tricked me," Cas said. "It wasn't the angel trials, it was a spell. I wanted you to know that."

Dean stopped at the window at the end of the hallway, glancing around. "Yeah, well that's great, but we've got ourselves a problem."

"What's wrong?"

"Sam," Dean said, turning to the window. He hadn't realised how much he'd needed to talk to someone who was going to listen, going to hear him. The angel wasn't a friend, not any more, but he was the closest thing he had. "He's, um, they say he's dying."

"What happened?"

"I don't _know_," Dean muttered. "At first he was okay, then he wasn't and – you heard my prayers? I been praying to you all night!"

Cas closed his eyes. It'd had taken him a long time to understand the man he considered a friend, a long time to realise that Dean's anger most frequently came out of his fear. He could hear that fear now, behind the hunter's anger. There wasn't a way to put this off. He couldn't help and Dean needed to know that, so that they could come up with something else for his brother. "Dean – Metatron, he … he took my Grace."

"What!?"

"What are you doing for Sam?"

"Uh, everything I can," Dean said, filing away Cas' brush-off. He'd deal with it when Sam was walking and talking again, he thought. "There's actually another angel in there working on him right now."

"What other angel?"

"His name is Ezekiel?" Dean said. "He's cool. I think. I mean, I think he is."

"Ezekiel," Cas said, remembering the tall, fair-haired warrior from the garrison with a smile. "Yes. He's a good soldier. He should be able to help until I get there."

"Uh, no, no, no," Dean said hurriedly. "Hey, that's not an option."

"Might be a few days, but –" Cas said, ignoring the protest. He couldn't now ask Dean to come and get him and he didn't think his friend had enough money to send either.

"Hey, Cas, listen to me," Dean cut him off. "There are angels out there, okay? And they're looking for you and they're pissed!"

"Not all of them, Dean," Cas said, his voice softening. "Some are just looking for direction. Some are just lost."

Dean's brows drew together. "What are you talking about?"

"I've met one," Cas told him. "I think I can help her, Dean."

"No – Cas," Dean said tightly, eyes closing in frustration. "I know you want to help, I do, okay? But helping angels is what got you in trouble in the first place! Now, I'm begging you, for once, just look out for yourself!" He waited for a protest, looking around. "Until we figure out what the hell is going on, trust nobody!"

"And do what?" Cas asked disbelievingly. "Just abandon them all?"

"Dammit, Cas!" Dean glanced around as he heard his voice rise. "There's a war on, and it's on you! There's thousands of them out there –" He cut himself off, sucking in a quick breath as he thought of another argument, one that might make the dumb fucking angel think. "You said you lost your Grace, right? That means you're _human_, that means you bleed, and you eat and you sleep and all the things you never had to worry about before!"

"I'm fine, Dean," Cas said quietly.

Rolling his eyes, Dean stared up at the ceiling, his attention focussing to a narrow pinpoint as the building shook slightly under his feet. "Whoa."

"What's going on?"

"I think we got more company," Dean told him tersely. "Look, get your ass to the bunker. Alone! You hear me?"

"Dean –"


	2. Chapter 2 Where Nothing's As It Seems

**Chapter 2 Where Nothing's as It Seems**

* * *

><p><em><strong>Glenwood Memorial Hospital, Randolph, New York<strong>_

"Go, Cas," Dean snapped, finishing the call and shoving the phone back into his pocket as he strode up the corridor to Sam's door and pushed it open.

"One of yours?" he asked as he closed the door behind him. Ezekiel turned from the window.

"Trying to secure a vessel," the angel confirmed. "We need to move."

"No, no, if we move him, he dies," Dean said, vetoing the idea immediately as he looked at the machines that kept his little brother breathing, his heart beating.

"If we stay, we could all die," Ezekiel pointed out bluntly.

_Bullshit_, Dean thought, his gaze flashing around the room, freezing as he saw the whiteboard fixed to one wall. The whiteboard markers were fat and came in black and red and he grabbed one, eyes half-closed as he pulled the sigils from his memories, deflection and guard, trap and illusion, his hand drawing them on the walls of the room almost without conscious thought.

He could feel the angel behind him, tension radiating out from him as he moved around the walls, covering them with the sigils, covering the door and the windows. He finished and capped the pen, tossing it to one side.

"Long as these are up, no angels are coming in, no one's coming out," he said to Ezekiel, glancing at Sam. "You gonna be okay with these?"

He'd never warded an angel in the room before.

Ezekiel looked uneasily at the guards. "I'll manage," he said. His face spasmed slightly and Dean looked at him.

"What?"

"They're here," the angel said, his mouth compressing tightly.

The high frequency noise that Dean remembered from a gas station and a motel room in Illinois penetrated the building, the room. He turned for the door. It was a hospital. Sick people, dying people, not all of 'em with an angel trying to heal them. He couldn't stand around in here and let them die, not if he could do something about it.

"Okay, do not open this door for anybody but me," he said to the angel, reaching for the handle. "Save him," he added, pointing to his brother. "You hear me?"

He pulled on the door and went through, yanking it shut behind him.

In the corridor, doctors and nurses were rushing for their patients as the shuddering of the building became more pronounced. He saw the small, bright red switch near the end of the hall and ran for it. The frequency jumped in intensity, and the glass in the observation windows on the other side of the hallway exploded as their resonance was met, covering him in shards and fragments. He accelerated to the fire alarm, reaching it and ripping out the key, the shrill whine filling the ward as the alarm began its blaring klaxon.

"Everybody out! NOW!" Dean yelled, pivoting in place as he looked at the people running and screaming. "Get out!"

He ducked as glass doors of a cabinet detonated next to him, ducking toward the wall.

Later, when there was time to think, he would wonder why he hadn't had a single warning, no spidey sense, no prickling, no nothing. At the time, he saw the dark-haired counsellor lying on the floor, and just reacted, crossing to her and pulling her to her feet, his thoughts and senses stretching out behind him and to either side, dismissing her as just another human in danger.

"Hey, you gotta get outta here." He looked at her impatiently. "Come on, come on," he said as she looked down at herself, trying to brush the glass off her clothing.

Dean turned and saw the burly man at the end of the hall, a brimmed cap and denim jacket at odds with the bright silver sword in one hand.

"Whoa."

He still had no sense of danger from behind.

"Stay behind me!" he ordered the woman, pulling the angel sword he'd picked up in the parking lot from the inside of his coat and squaring up to the angel in front of him.

So when Kim Schultz hit his elbow from behind, paralysing the nerves in his hand and sending the sword flying, it came as a real shock. He turned and slammed a hand toward her, the block reverberating through knuckles to wrist and all the way to the shoulder and her hand was around his throat, tightening and lifting as she looked up at him coldly.

"I don't think so," she sneered, the twisted-up expression incongruous against the dark flicks of her hair and the feminine floral blouse.

* * *

><p>Sam looked around the woods, and down at the man walking beside him. The part of him that accepted death, he thought, distantly recognising that Bobby, the real Bobby, would no more have accepted death than his brother, his real brother, would've.<p>

"I wanna fight," he told the old man. "I do. I just feel like –"

"Like you got nothing to swing at?" Bobby guessed, looking up at him. "Like you're punching at shadows?"

Sam exhaled softly. It wasn't exactly that. And somewhere, deeper inside, maybe, he had a feeling that not fighting, this time, in this place, was awfully close to what he'd done his whole life.

"You gotta let go of fighting, scratching an' lookin' for loopholes," Bobby continued, apparently oblivious to that deeper feeling. "'Cos that ain't happenin'."

"So – so, what? I just die?" Sam said. If Bobby was a part of him, wouldn't he be aware of that deeper fear, he thought distractedly. Not necessarily, a voice in his mind countered. You know that the mind is capable of holding two opposing truths, you've lived it.

"Just die?" Bobby said, an edge to his voice. "All the good you've done, all the people you saved? All the sacrifices you've made? You saved the world, son! How many people can say that? How many people can say that they have left this godforsaken hunk of dirt that much a better place?"

Sam frowned. The _notright_ feeling had returned. He heard Bobby huff softly.

"What you call 'dying', I call 'leaving a legacy'," Bobby said, hands in his pockets as he strolled alongside Sam down the dappled forest track.

_No._

The thought intruded, whispering in his head. No, that wasn't right. It was too easy, too pat. He hadn't saved the world alone. He hadn't done any of it alone. And he'd brought it on. His choices, his decisions, had brought the world to the brink of destruction and he hadn't fixed things by himself.

He had … what had he done, in that little church? He'd told someone … told someone everything. All those choices. All those moments of weakness. He couldn't make the details come clearer.

Bobby slowed as they came into a small clearing. At the end a cabin was shrouded by the woods surrounding it.

"Well, there it is," the old man said, stopping as he looked at the house.

Sam slowed down, his few extra strides taking him closer to the cabin, further from Bobby. It looked … decrepit, he thought uneasily. An amalgamation of places he'd known in real life? Or something his mind had conjured?

"Everything inside you need to help you on your way," Bobby said.

He turned back to Bobby. There was a part of him that was longing for the end, he knew. But the house still made him wary, uncomfortable with its bucolic promise of peace.

"Go on, son," Bobby said, one side of his mouth lifting slightly. "I'll be waiting for you with a couple of cold ones."

He was just turning away when he heard Bobby's strangled gasp. Dean was standing behind the old man, the tip of his hunting knife red and protruding from the Bobby's chest.

"Sorry, old man," his brother said, letting him fall to the ground.

"Dean!" Sam stared at him. "Are you insane?!"

"Come on, Sammy!" Dean growled at him. "Bobby was the part of you that wants to die – and I'm fucked if I know why since I'm pretty damned sure it was you telling me about the fucking light at the end of the tunnel, just a little while ago?" He shook his head. "I know it stings, but he had to go!"

"No," Sam said, walking to him. "You – have to go!" He looked at his brother's face, seeing the anger there. "I was wrong about the light, alright? When are you gonna realise that it's over?! There's nothing to fight for!"

"No," Dean said. "See, I know you don't believe that."

"Really?" Sam looked at him incredulously. Even in his own subconscious his brother discounted his feelings, his thoughts. _That's _not_ Dean_, the small voice in his mind said. "What's your plan, Dean?"

"My plan?" The facsimile of his brother looked away. The right hook was telegraphed and it hit Sam hard enough to knock him backward, shaking his head as he staggered to stay upright, unable to believe he hadn't moved out of the way.

"My plan is to fight!" Dean snarled, stalking after him.

He reeled back further as his brother's hands hit him in the chest, shoving hard. The right jab that followed was not telegraphed and he couldn't even ride it, his cheekbone ringing with the impact from Dean's knuckles.

"My plan is to try!" Dean yelled at him, another cross slamming into his cheek again. "My plan is to give a damn!"

Sam felt his jacket caught up, Dean yanking him straight, knuckles white-skinned and bleeding against his chest.

"You telling me there's nothin'?" Dean asked, his breath gusting into Sam's face. "You telling me there's nothin' to fight for? Nothin' to hope for?"

Sam stared at him, feeling his blood trickle over his skin, the anger radiating from his brother like a furnace. Was this his brother? His big brother he'd looked up to every day of his life?

"No," he said, his breath rasping in his throat. "I'm telling you there is. You might not like it, you might not accept it, but it's in there, it's in that house –"

"You know what's in that house!" Dean said, his fists tightening on the jacket lapels. "Now, I can't help you if you ain't willing to fight for yourself!"

_You don't want to fight, Sam, isn't that right? What you want to do is let it all go and finally get a reward for the sacrifices you made, the pain you felt, the agonies of losing everyone you loved._

Sam looked down as the words whispered and echoed in his mind. He was tired. He felt as if he had no strength left.

"I know," he said, his hands closing over his brother's, pushing them away. He looked at Dean's face. "It's okay – it's what I want."

_That's not Dean_, the voice whispered to him again. And his brother's face … changed … the fury and darkness disappearing, his expression morphing from belligerent to a mute plea.

_You told me that you saw a light at the end of this tunnel, man. You told me that you could help me find it and you did – I can see what you did – I can see a way through – but not without you, Sammy. I can't do this without you._

Dean shimmered and dissolved and Sam's hand lifted suddenly, reaching for him. What the hell was going on? He remembered … he remembered telling his brother … what?

_You're the best damned hunter I've ever seen, and that includes everyone we've ever known. You're better than me, better than Dad ever was, because you know, every time, inside somewhere deep that you _never_ fucking well acknowledge, what's right and what's wrong. You _care_._

Turning around, Sam looked at the house. Walking into it would mean giving up – or letting go, depending on your perspective, he guessed. It would mean no more fighting, fighting who he was, what he'd done, fighting his brother, fighting himself. It would mean no more anything.

Why did he want to do that? _Why did it feel so _wrong_?_

* * *

><p><em><strong>US 287, Colorado<strong>_

Castiel woke, his stomach roiling and his head throbbing, his eyes screwing shut as the daylight speared into them, making the pain in his head worse. He lifted a hand and felt the wetness on the back of his head, blood coating his fingers as he looked at them.

The car was moving south, Hael driving beside him. How deep had she gone into her vessel, he wondered. He couldn't drive, although he was sure Jimmy could. It was forbidden to access the vessel's memories when inhabiting. Just the body. Not the mind.

Memory came back as he turned his head and saw the sword, lying across Hael's lap. She'd argued when he'd told her that she could make her own way in this world, that he needed to find his friends, needed to help them. And then there'd been a loud noise and … nothing.

"You understand that I couldn't just let you leave," she said to him now, her eyes fixed on the road. "I'd be … lost … without you, Castiel."

"Yes," he said uneasily. "I'm – beginning to see that."

"It's the least I could ask of you," she continued, her voice cool and reasonable. "Considering that, well, this is all your fault, isn't it? Your rebellion against obedience? Your prideful arrogance? If it hadn't been for you, Castiel, none of this would've happened."

He glanced at her profile, seeing her small smile against the blur of the forest rushing by behind her. Dean had been right, he thought unhappily. As usual.

"But I will protect you, brother, against all those who want nothing more than to see you dead," Hael said. "We're going to become … much more than friends. We're going to become one."

Cas frowned at her. "You want to possess me?"

She smiled at the distaste in his voice. "I'm going to save you. I think you were right. With you, I think I could learn to like it here."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Glenwood Memorial Hospital, Randolph, New York<strong>_

The corridor was moving, Dean thought, looking blearily through a film of red. The hands that held the back of his coat released him and he just managed to stop his head from smacking onto the floor, the muscles in his neck complaining.

"Let me make this easy," the angel said, looking down at him. "Tell me where Castiel is, or your brother's going to wish you were dead."

He squinted up at her, forcing his eyes to focus. "Yeah, good luck getting past the warding."

She smiled, very slightly. "But we will."

Leaning forward, her hands closed in the folds of his coat and she lifted him to his feet. "And when we do, I'm going to strip off all your brother's skin from his body … and you're going to watch."

He glanced at the fire axe the other angel held, wondering how much time he could buy before they broke enough of the sigils to get close to Sam.

"Bite me."

The blow hit the same eye that'd been taking most of the punishment so far, and he flew backwards, grunting as he hit the floor and slid over the glass-covered linoleum. _Not much more time_, he thought, blackness crowding the edges of his vision.

He rolled onto his knees, flinching as he tried to put some weight on his left hand and it gave way under him. Nothing better to do than to be an irritating distraction. He looked up at the woman and forced out a laugh that turned into a cough.

"Anyone ever tell you, you hit like an angel?"

He'd thought it was a reasonable comment. She apparently disagreed and her foot hit him under the jaw, rattling his brain and bringing the blackness right up close, so close he felt his eyelids drop, the world spinning away from him in starbursts of white against the darkness, a persistent ringing in his ears that slowed down to an agonising throb. The hard click and crunch of leather soles over the broken glass impinged distantly on his senses and he forced the welcoming darkness away, forced his eye to open. He couldn't do much about riding the blows, couldn't move quick enough to take away their power, but he'd last longer if he could at least see which direction they were coming from. Hauled upright again, he wondered at the fury he could see in her eyes.

"Wasn't Cas," he slurred at her, blood dribbling over his lips. "Metatron –"

For a small woman, she was doing a surprising amount of damage, Dean considered dazedly as he hit the wall of the corridor again and dropped bonelessly to the floor. He wasn't sure if she was taking out her anger on him because she couldn't get to the angel she wanted, or if she was just a mean mothering angel who didn't care who she was pounding.

His blood was dripping steadily onto the linoleum beside his hand and he looked down, feeling his cheekbone grating slightly under the skin, looking at the growing pool of red. It presented an interesting metaphysical question, he decided, lifting his hand slowly and dragging his fingers through the pool.

The sound of the axe smashing through the door behind him barely penetrated, it was taking all his concentration to smear the blood across the smooth linoleum floor.

"Where is Castiel?"

He heard her step, a hard click on the hard floor.

"Okay, wa-wa-wait! I'll tell you where Cas is," he said, blinking the blackness from the corners of his vision. If this didn't work, he was going to die. That thought didn't hold much fear for him. But if he died, the dicks behind him would go after Ezekiel and then Sam would die. The certainty of that thought did the trick, the blood-filled deep breath he dragged in clearing his sight, letting him focus on the muted pattern on the floor beside him. "I just have one question."

The angels glanced at each other, and the woman's face hardened. "Ask."

"If Heaven is locked up tight," Dean said, looking down at the floor. "Then where do you go when I do this?"

He rolled back against the wall and slammed his right palm over the blood-drawn sigil, eyes screwing shut as the corridor filled with light, angels and their vessels disappearing in the argent fury.

_Fuck, gettin' too damned old for this_, he thought as relief trickled through and let all the pain he'd been ignoring light up his nervous system. Creaking, grating, throbbing, pulsing, stabbing, aching pain. He pushed himself up the wall and opened the splintered door. Inside the room, the machines holding Sam tethered to life were beeping and trilling, the noise filling the room with a sense of frantic alarm

"What the hell's happening?" Dean asked, looking at the monitors above his brother's bed.

"This … just started," Ezekiel said, half-slumped in the chair on the other side of Sam's bed. "And the warding … I'm afraid I'm weaker than I thought."

Dean turned and grabbed the red marker from the whiteboard tray, slashing across the sigils with it.

"I am sorry, Dean."

Turning to look at him, Dean shook his head. "No, no, no, _no_, we had a deal, okay? I fight, you save!"

Ezekiel looked at him, his breath labouring in his throat. "And … would that I could," he said unsteadily. "I'm just afraid … it's too late."

"You kidding me?" Dean gestured furiously at Sam. "Are you sayin' there's no way of saving my brother's life?"

"No good ways," the angel said, his head drooping a little, as if he were too weary to keep holding it up.

"Well, what are the bad ones?!" Dean watched the angel's eyes close and felt a surge of adrenalin hit him. "We're outta options here, man, good or bad, lemme hear 'em!"

"I cannot promise," Ezekiel said, his expression tightening as he felt his anchors slipping from inside his vessel. "But there is a chance I can repair the damage to your brother. From the inside."

"From the inside," Dean repeated, looking at Sam and wondering what the hell that meant. "So, what? You're gunna open him up?"

Ezekiel shook his head. The angel's intention hit Dean a second later.

"What? Possession?" He stared at him incredulously. "You want to possess Sam?!"

"I told you," Ezekiel said.

"No way!"

"Understood," the angel sighed. "It's your call."

Dean felt that slap against him. "No," he said, turning away and walking to the bedside, his eyes fixed on his brother's face. "It's Sam's call."

_Don't you dare think that there is anything – past or present – that I would put in front of you! That meant more to me than you! It has _never_ been like that – _ever_!_

"There's no way in hell he'd say yes to being possessed by anything," Dean said, shutting out the shrill alarms that were going on and on around them and looking over Sam's unmoving body at the angel.

"He would rather die," Ezekiel suggested and Dean swallowed, accepting that as he hadn't been able to before. He would rather die, he thought.

_I am my brother's keeper. Guardian. Family. Protector and blood_. The thought looped around and around in his head. He wasn't twenty-six anymore. Wasn't that kid who thought he was a man, anymore.

Ezekiel got to his feet slowly, and he moved his hand in front of the machines, silencing them completely.

"I'll leave you two alone then."

The unspoken words hammered at Dean. Alone to say goodbye. Goodbye. Forever. No more resurrections. No more second chances. No more brother. No more … Sam.

_You protect your brother, Dean_, his father said, the distance of his voice echoing in the rapidly expanding wasteland inside of him. _You look after him and make sure nothing can get him._

_I am my brother's keeper. Guardian … protector … brother._

"Wait," he said, the word forced out of him with the knowledge that if he did this, if he let Sam go now, there was nothing but the job and death and endless years of pain. He could live with that, if he knew. Knew it was the best thing – the only thing. But not if there was the slightest chance of Sam living out his life, as he was supposed to have done.

_I see light at the end of this tunnel. And I'm sorry you don't. I am. But it's there, and if you come with me, I can take you to it._

He didn't think it was there, not for him. But he thought it was for Sam. He turned and looked at the angel.

"If I consider this – and I mean, _just_ consider it – I need something, man, you gotta prove to me how bad he is," he said to Ezekiel.

The angel walked slowly back across the room, stopping by the bed, reaching out and resting his hand over Sam's forehead.

He looked at Dean. "Close your eyes."

Ezekiel lifted the other hand and touching his forehead. And Dean fell … into his brother's mind.

* * *

><p>Sam pushed the door open, and the interior of the cabin swam and changed from Rufus' cabin in Whitefish to something else, someplace else. From his past, he wondered nervously? From his imagination?<p>

A fire burned in the fieldstone hearth and in front of it, a figure stood, still and silent, in a plain black suit.

_You know what's in that house!_

Yeah, he'd known.

"Hello, Sam," the figure said quietly, turning to look at him. "I've been waiting for you."

Death waved a hand at the armchairs placed near the hearth. "Sit."

It wasn't the sort of request that you bucked up against, Sam thought, taking the seat uncomfortably.

"I must admit, when I heard it was you, well, I had to come myself," Death said, the ancient gaze like a brand against the side of Sam's face.

"I bet you get off on this," Sam muttered, unable to think of anything else to say to the entity who'd always had more rapport with his brother.

"Perhaps," Death admitted. "But not in the way you assume. I consider it quite the honour to be collecting the likes of Sam Winchester."

Sam turned to look at him, a frown deepening between his brows.

"I try so hard not to pass judgement at times like these," Death continued, meeting his eyes steadily. "Not my bag, you see. But you … well played, my boy."

_Notright. Notright. Notright._

Sam felt the peculiarity twist and distort the cabin, the walls and floor and ceiling wavering in and out slightly as if the fabric of this reality had shuddered. He'd met Death once. The abortive attempt to force the entity to kill Castiel, when the angel had been under the impression he was God.

A breathless, soundless sigh rippled through the room and his head snapped around, senses stretching out through the cabin, sure that someone else was there, was watching and … laughing.

"I need to know one thing," he said, trying to focus on what was happening and looking back at the thin old man.

Death turned in the chair, leaning forward, his entire attention on the man in front of him. "Yes?"

"If I go with you, can you _promise_ that this time it will be final. That if I'm dead, I _stay_ dead," Sam said, his finger stabbing the air for emphasis on every repetition of the word. "Nobody can reverse it, nobody can deal it away, and nobody can get hurt because of me."

Death considered him carefully for a moment then nodded. "I can promise that."

The sense of laughter, amorphous and inaudible, came again and Sam looked around, his eyes searching the room, his ears straining to hear – anything. Someone was here.

_But 'here' is in your head_, he thought. _No one could be '_here'_ but you._

* * *

><p>The angel's hand lifted and Dean opened his eyes, staring down at his brother.<p>

"What the hell you doin', Sam?" he breathed, shaking at the memory of his brother's demand.

"As you can see, there's not much time," Ezekiel said.

Dean flicked a glance at the angel. "I know. Dammit, I know."

He turned away, closing his eyes. He would've bet good money on Sam fighting this, fighting to stay alive, to get back to life, to find his light. He couldn't, really, believe that his brother was so ready to lay down in the cold earth, for it to be … final.

_You _protect_ your brother, Dean._

Even from himself, he wondered bleakly? Sam had been possessed – by Meg and by Lucifer. He would never, ever consider that option, not even for life, not even to breathe again.

_Guardian. Family. Blood._

"How would it work?" he asked, turning to look at Ezekiel. "Sam was Lucifer's vessel – how can he be yours as well? I thought the god squad were strict on that bloodline stuff?"

Ezekiel nodded. "For a permanent connection, the vessel must be compatible to the bloodlines. For temporary use, for this," he said, gesturing slightly toward the unconscious man on the bed. "for this it matters only that he consents."

"And then?"

"Mutual – benefit, I suppose," Ezekiel said softly. "I heal Sam, while healing myself."

_That was fair enough_, Dean thought. _Piper had to be paid_. "And when he's healed?"

"I leave," Ezekiel said, his tone suggesting surprise that any other course of action was conceivable.

Even if the angel was completely on the level, as honourable and mission-oriented as he'd claimed and Cas had confirmed, the risks were … considerable, Dean thought, feeling himself squeezed between a bad choice and a worse one. And when had that been any different?

"It's the best of a bad situation, Dean."

_Not quite_, Dean thought. _Not the best. Just the least sucky of a bunch of options that were ever-decreasing in palatability. The one that offered the most hope of keeping his promise to his father, to his mother … and to himself_. "Even if I said 'yes', it doesn't mean squat," he told the angel as he walked closer to his brother. "Sam will never say yes … not to you."

"But he would say yes – to you," Ezekiel said.

* * *

><p><em><strong>US 287, Colorado<strong>_

Speed Kills. Speed Kills. Speed Kills.

Cas couldn't get the thought, seen somewhere on television, out of his thoughts.

_Speed Kills_. And … _Seatbelts Save Lives_.

He glanced across at the woman driving. He couldn't grab the sword more quickly than she could drop her hand down to it. She might've wanted his vessel but he was reasonably sure she'd kill him if he tried anything that overt.

His gaze lifted slightly and he saw the seatbelt, hanging straight up and down to Hael's left. Not fastened.

Seatbelts _Save_ Lives.

He reached for his own belt, feeling the pull of the spring and drawing it gently across his body. There was a faint click as the latch slipped into the lock and his eyes snapped up to Hael's profile. She hadn't moved, was watching the road, keeping between the lines painted on the asphalt, her speed a steady fifty-five miles per hour.

If the forward motion of the car was suddenly arrested, the angel considered, any object not anchored within the car's body would continue at the same speed as the car had originally been travelling, providing that no significant obstacle prevented that. He thought of the laws of physics and of inertial forces, of distance and weight and relative speed.

Ahead of them, a concrete crash barrier had been erected to prevent cars from going over the edge of the steep drop to the right.

Cas reached out and yanked the steering wheel hard to the right, the car swerving and the angel driving pressed harder on the accelerator in a panic reaction. The vehicle's nose crumpled as per design specifications when it hit the concrete blocks, but the engine could not and both angels were thrown hard forward as the car's motion ceased abruptly.

* * *

><p>Castiel woke for the second time to a churning stomach and a pounding head. He lifted his head, looking around blearily, taking in the blood-edged hole in the windshield as his vessel's nervous system inventoried and advised him of every injury he had. There was nothing he could do to turn the nervous system off. He moved to release his seatbelt <em>(seatbelts SAVE LIVES!)<em> and was reminded suddenly and unpleasantly of his experience with an over-indulgence in alcohol. Dean had thrown a bottle of pills at him. They'd helped dull the pain receptors in his vessel then.

Pushing open the door, he eased himself out, the bright sunshine spearing again into his eyes, making him squint against it. His chest hurt. Both arms. His head was killing him. His knees were shaking and his feet were aching.

_Human_.

He stumbled around the concrete blocks and saw Hael, her vessel's body broken and twisted, lying on the grass several yards from the car. A thin gleam from the ground caught his peripheral vision and he bent slowly to pick up the angel sword, the hilt comfortingly familiar in his hand.

"I don't want to hurt you," he said, crouching in front of her as she lifted her head to look at him. "I didn't want to hurt any of you – I wanted to help you!"

She rolled her eyes. "You know where the road of good intention leads, Castiel. How can you _help_ – now? It was _your_ doing that killed every archangel. It was _your_ doing that prevented the Apocalypse and the paradise we had waited more than two thousand years for. And it was _your_ doing that we were cast out. They don't want your _help_, Castiel. They want your _head_!"

"You're wrong," Cas said, fighting the rising waves of nausea and self-doubt that were filling him. "I'm one of you! I will never stop being one of you."

She stared at him, the pretty blue eyes wide, her face patterned in blood. "Don't you get it? Are you that stupid? Together, I can protect you – on your own, you will be hunted across the face of this earth, hunted every single minute of your short, worthless, human life!"

"I don't want – I don't need your protection," Cas assured her, getting to his feet.

"If you leave me here, in this broken body, I promise you I will tell them where you are, and where you are going and they will hunt you down with their last breath," Hael shrilled at him. "They will seek revenge and deliver their wrath on the angel who did this – the angel who destroyed Heaven –"

"Stop!"

"They will seek you with a vengeance that will make God striking down Lucifer seem like child's play!"

"I said STOP it!"

"I will scream to the heavens and to the depths of the oceans and call to our brothers and sisters unless you open your heart – say _yes!_ –"

Cas lunged forward and the tip of the sword slid easily into her chest, between the ribs and into the heart. Her head thrown back, the quicksilver light poured from Hael's eyes and mouth, lighting Cas' face, washing out the colour from the grass and trees and sky and road surrounding them, flickering and dying as her spirit vanished. He pulled the sword out and she fell backward, hitting the earth with a dull and final thud.

Straightening slowly, Cas stared down at her body. She had accused him of destroying everything. Of being a monster, a hunted monster. Yet she had not considered that he would kill her. She had not considered it to be unbearable to be trapped in a single vessel with him.

The arrogance of his kind, he wondered in perplexity? Or was there some other reason for her _not_ to fear him, destroyer of Heaven. A faint, flashing memory from a television show watched once slipped through his mind. _The game's afoot, Watson, we must watch our step_.

Was the game truly afoot? If he was so hunted and so reviled, would any angel believe that he would not kill again? Would any angel attempt to threaten and cajole and bargain with him?

Turning away from the body, he looked down at his clothing. It was spattered with blood, almost all of it his own. Meshed into cell and nerve, he could feel everything and he hoped, against all hope perhaps, that Jimmy was alright, unconscious and unaware deep within the matrix of the vessel's brain. He wouldn't approve of what had become of his body, Cas thought.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Glenwood Memorial Hospital, Randolph, New York<strong>_

"What do I do?" Dean looked at the angel tiredly.

"I will need you there, to begin with," Ezekiel said. "For orientation to your brother's mind."

"What?"

"You know him and he knows you, he must not think that there's anything different about you so I will be – hiding, for a lack of a better word, behind you, until he accepts that it is you."

Dean looked down at the floor. The goddamned deal was getting worse by the minute. Was he really going to let the angel trick his brother like this? The answer was, and had always been, yes. He would do whatever was needed to save Sam. He'd live with the consequences and the shame afterward.

"And then?"

"And then I will let you go, when he says yes."

"You better," Dean warned him, although they both knew the threat was meaningless. It was this or making funeral arrangements and there was no way he was good for that.

"Let's do it."

The angel stepped closer to him, touching Sam's forehead again lightly, reaching out to rest his fingertips against Dean's, and closing his eyes.

* * *

><p>The sensation was almost like falling, but not exactly, Dean thought irrelevantly, opening his eyes in the cabin that was imbued with a sulphurous yellow light.<p>

"Sam, it's time," Death was saying, rising to his feet. "Shall we?"

Dean stepped forward as Sam got up as well. "Hold on."

"Dean –"

"It's okay, Sam," he said to his brother. Glancing at the entity, he lifted one shoulder in tacit apology. "I would'a brought Crow Nuts, but, uh, time is short, so–"

Death nodded once. "By all means."

"What's going on?" Sam asked, forehead deeply creased as he tried to work out if this was the Dean that was the part of him that wanted to fight, or some other manifestation of his brother. He seemed a lot less ready to fight, this time around.

"I found a plan," Dean said, his relief easing the tension in his face. Sam shook his head.

"It's too late, I'm going."

"No. No," Dean countered, almost automatically, Sam thought. "Not yet, Sam, listen to me–"

"Why are you even here?" Sam said, gesturing sharply in irritation. He'd sent him away. For good, he'd thought. No more advice from his big brother. It was his decision. "I'm not fighting this any more."

"You have to fight this!" Dean growled at him, seeing Sam's expression and lowering his voice slightly. "I can fix this, okay? But not if you shut me out."

Sam looked at Death and Dean's gaze swivelled to the entity as well.

"It's not his time," he said, looking for something in the creature's eyes, some understanding, some meeting point. He'd found it there before. When he'd needed it.

"That's for Sam to decide," Death told him without inflexion and Dean registered the difference in the old man without being able to pinpoint it. Looking back at his brother, he could see that Sam was again unsure of what his decision was going to be. Was that habit, he wondered helplessly, habit that his baby brother would follow where he led, do as he was told. He hadn't always but he'd tried, he'd tried hard.

_He's ready to listen, Dean._

_No, wait, give me a few minutes more._

_No. Let go – now._

Dean felt himself cast off, vertigo spinning him around, turning him inside out as he was dumped back in his body.

"No, goddammit!"

* * *

><p>"Sam, listen to me," the angel said, feeling the mask solidify over him. "I made you a promise, back in that church, come whatever – well, hell, if this ain't whatever! But you gotta let me in, man – you gotta let me help!"<p>

He could see Sam wavering, looking from what he thought was his brother to Death, trying to weigh the choices, the decision. _A heartfelt plea_, he thought, _would tip him_. A plea from Dean.

"There ain't no me, if there ain't no you!" he cried out, a note of desperation in his voice.

Sam flinched. He knew that lost look on his brother's face. Dean couldn't lose him, not now, and maybe not ever. Thinking of the past year, he could remember the anger that had risen when he'd talked about getting out, or even trying to live some kind of normal while they were hunting together. There was no life for his brother, he realised, his chest squeezing painfully close. No life that didn't include them both.

Turning away from Death, his voice was shaking as he asked, "What do I do?"

"Is that a yes?" Dean asked him hopefully.

Sam felt a flicker of doubt at the question, brushing it aside as he glanced at Death and saw no particular reaction there. Maybe the doubt was just a side-effect of way too much time in his own head, he thought.

"Yes."

"Come on," Dean breathed, stepping closer to him and reaching out to touch his shoulder.

The familiar features of his brother glowed with light and Sam watched them bend and stretch and smooth out into the features of another man, an unfamiliar face. Then the light flooded everything and the man holding his shoulder, Death and the cabin itself was gone.

He was gone.

* * *

><p>Dean waited, chewing the corner of his lip, his fingers curled tightly into the thin blanket that covered Sam.<p>

Ezekiel stood beside him, breath rasping in and out of his throat, one hand still resting on Sam's forehead, the other hanging beside him. He was having a hard time resisting the overpowering impulse to grab the angel's hand, just so's he could see what the fuck was going on. Sam's chest rose and fell, with an aching slowness that Dean couldn't bear to watch, no matter how many times he told himself that at least it _was_ rising and falling, on its own.

The angel's vessel dropped without warning, crumpling with a muted crack as the man's head hit the floor, but Dean barely glanced at him, Sam twitching once on the bed and then sitting up, blinking rapidly and pulling free the wires and tubes that were attached to him.

Dean thought he heard the material in his fist creak in protest as his hand tightened harder around it.

"Sam?"

"No," Ezekiel said, meeting his gaze steadily as he swung his legs over the edge of the bed. "Not yet."

That one look into the angel's eyes had been enough, he thought. Enough to tell him that his brother wasn't there.

"Find me clothing," Ezekiel said abruptly, bending to the man on the floor. "I can't walk out like this."

"Right," Dean said automatically, going to the small closet and pulling out Sam's duffel. He pushed the clothes around, pulling out a clean t-shirt, mostly clean shirt, passable jeans and socks and shoes and throwing them behind him on the chair as Ezekiel lifted his vessel onto the bed.

"Will he be alright?" he asked curiously.

"He won't remember anything," Ezekiel said shortly, reaching back to untie the gown then pulling on the jeans. "He is not harmed."

"That's, uh, good." He looked away awkwardly, wondering how many folks had mistaken angel possession for UFO encounters in the last fifty-odd years. "I guess."

"We have to leave, now," Ezekiel told him, pulling on the shirt and looking around for a coat. "There are more coming, and I – _we_ – are vulnerable."

Dean nodded, opening the door and looking out into the chaos of the corridor. "We're good."

"Then go."

* * *

><p>Exiting the building wasn't a problem, and Dean gestured across the flat, paved grounds to the parking lot as they came into the thin, afternoon sunshine.<p>

"So?" Dean asked as they walked across the square at the angel's slow pace. "How's it look in there?"

"Not good," Ezekiel said bluntly. "There is much work to be done."

The voice was Sam's, Dean thought distractedly, but the delivery, the intonation and pitch and timbre were not. If he didn't look at him, he could convince himself he wasn't talking to his possessed brother.

"He's gonna wake up, right?" Dean glanced at him, looking away from the expressionless face that was, and wasn't, Sam, with a small, mental flinch.

"He will."

"So when he does, is he going to feel you inside, triaging his spleen?"

"He will not feel me, no," Ezekiel said, turning to look down at Dean. "There is no reason for Sam to know that I am here at all."

Dean's gaze snapped back to him. "You're joking, right? No! No, I can't – I'm not gonna lie to him! This is – this is too big."

"And what will he do, if you tell him he is possessed by an angel?" Ezekiel asked pointedly, stopping and forcing Dean to a stop as well.

"I dunno, he'll have to understand."

The angel looked at him carefully. "And if he does not?"

Dean looked away, not wanting to think about all those ramifications right this second.

"Without his continued acceptance," Ezekiel continued relentlessly, his eyes boring into the other man's. "Sam can eject me – at any time – especially with me so weak. And if Sam _does_ eject me, he _will_ die."

"What?!" Dean shook his head. "No, wait a second, that's not how it works –"

"In this situation, Dean, it _is_ how it works," Ezekiel cut him off. "Under more normal circumstances, the vessel would have time to make the decision, would accept the angel wholeheartedly, giving themselves over. Under normal circumstances, I would wrap the vessel's mind in layers of protection and keep them unaware and safe from what was happening around them – that's something you don't want, is it?"

Live with the angel as his partner instead of his brother, Dean thought, feeling a stab of unease at the idea. No.

"No."

"Then you see the problem." The angel turned away, looking around the lot. "Sam did not consent to me – he consented to you. He can – and most likely will – cast me out if he discovers he was tricked."

Dean looked at the cold hazel eyes and licked his lips. _Great, don't you sugar-coat it for me, will ya_, he thought, dropping his gaze. He'd promised his brother, no more lies. No more secrets. And for the most part, that'd worked better than it ever had before. But when did he ever get a break that lasted more than a few months, he thought bitterly, nodding as he realised that this was going to be something he would have to do, something he would have hold inside his head, and his heart, until the angel had healed Sam, at least.

"Then we keep it a secret," he agreed unwillingly. "For now. Or until Sam's well enough that he doesn't need an angelic pacemaker," he added, looking at the angel. "Or I find a way to tell him, I-I –"

The words dried up and died in his throat as he looked down that path and realised what an unholy mess was building in his – their – future. One fucking problem at a time, he told himself, the same way he'd told himself a thousand times before. Sam gets well, a lot of this stuff would fade into the background. Except for the way it felt.

"As for him being in hospital, we'll have to figure something out," he continued, thoughts already jumping ahead to the parameters of the lie, the series of lies that were going encompass his world for the next however long.

"I can erase it all, if you like," Ezekiel offered, his tone suggesting that was the only solution. "He will not remember any of this."

It would simplify … everything, Dean thought, his stomach plummeting at the thought of the angel in his brother's mind, looking, judging, removing. It would make it unnecessary to keep track of a boxful of lies. And it would break Sam's heart if he ever found out that he'd agreed to it, he knew.

_Dean, you know, you've pulled some shady crap before, but this … has got to be the worst. Whitewashing their memories? Take it from somebody who knows …_

Sam'd been shocked when he'd asked Cas to do that to Lisa and Ben. He couldn't think of another way to remove them from his life, from the _danger_ of his life, to give them a chance to get back to normal.

It hadn't been until a while later that he'd realised he hadn't removed anything but his own guilt. As leverage, they were still vulnerable. He hadn't asked the angel to take away his knowledge of them. He didn't want to acknowledge that the load was lighter without their longing for something he couldn't give them.

Was this the same? Was he really looking for an easy way to keep what he'd done from his brother so that he wouldn't have to deal with the fallout?

He rubbed a hand irritably over his face and looked at the angel. Did it matter? Sam couldn't find out about this, not now, not ever. He would heal, they would move on, things would … settle. He nodded at Ezekiel, unable to force the agreement out of his throat.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Glenwood Springs, Colorado<strong>_

Castiel looked at the brightly-lit sign and down at himself. It'd only been the cover of darkness that had enabled him to get the last ride, and he hadn't even realised he'd been heading in the wrong direction until the truck driver had told him, letting him out on the outskirts of the small town.

He was tired. Filthy. Blood-spattered. He needed to be clean, at the very least, or he wouldn't be able to get to the bunker in Kansas at all.

The laundromat was almost empty, an older woman loading a dryer at the far end. Stopping near the counter, Cas looked at her and down at himself.

"You look like you've been in the wars, dear," she said matter-of-factly as she changed his last dollar for four quarters. "Never mind, it'll wash off, won't it?"

Would it, he wondered? The killing? The betrayals. The thousands of murderously angry angels on his tail?

"Thank you," he said, taking the coins and walking back along the line of machines, looking for an empty one. It would take his last bit of money to wash everything, he thought, stripping off slowly, putting pants, socks, tie, shirt and finally coat into the big washing-machine.

His stomach growled as he was about to insert the coins into their slots and Cas hesitated, the vending machine on the other side of the room drawing his attention immediately. Food. Dean had been right. Again. He needed food. And sleep. He couldn't push at his vessel's body with no consideration any more.

His fingers played with the coins restlessly as he tried to weigh up the pros and cons. On the table behind him a basket of clean, dry clothes were waiting to be folded and bagged.

Stealing, the angel thought, running a hand tiredly over his forehead in a gesture that was reminiscent of another. That's what he'd been reduced to. Stealing clothes in order to eat, he amended to himself.

_I wanted to help._

He sighed deeply, looking down at the coins and the clothing bundled in the machine. It was apparent that his hubris had still not been tempered, he thought. And his friend had been right about that too. He _was_ a child. He couldn't even help himself, standing half-naked in this establishment, unable to make a decision between food and sin.

The coins jingled as his fingers closed tightly around them. Turning his head, he watched the manager walk down to the back of the room, disappearing through a door in the rear wall, and he grabbed the basket, setting it on the floor beside the machines and pulling out the pants, shirt, socks and jacket he needed. The fastenings were slightly unfamiliar, the zipper confounding him for several seconds until he decided that the coat could be left open. He returned the basket to the table and walked around to the vending machine, choosing the most caloric and sweetened foods he could see.

Two minutes later, he stepped out onto the balcony that fronted the business. He was almost two hundred further west than he'd been when he'd woken. Kansas lay to the east, on the other side of the mountains. He would start walking, he decided, looking down at the lit streets. And hope that someone would show mercy and offer him a lift.

* * *

><p><em><strong>I-80W, outside of Joliet, Illinois<strong>_

_Once upon a time, there was this apple-pie family_.

Dean closed his eyes briefly. Except that they were _never_ apple-pie, only they didn't know it.

Ahead, through the windshield, the headlights delineated the road, showing the imperfections in the pitch-black asphalt, bright white where they touched the lines painted down the middle and along the edges. He'd seen two other vehicles, both travelling east, in the last four hours.

_The family was a happy one. They were very happy when the baby had been born_, he remembered. _A little brother_. _One night, the happiness vanished in flame and the oldest boy learned that bad things happened, even to those you loved the most, and he learned that he had to be strong enough to protect his baby brother from the world that had gone from safe and secure and known to one of chaos and incomprehensible, inimical evil_.

He dragged in a deep breath. Not that simple, he told himself. Never was that simple, but that'd been the gist. No more safe. No more happy. No more love.

_Sam's alive_. That was the main thing. Alive and getting better and he was still doing his job, and that was a main thing too.

_Protector._

The word hung in his mind and he turned it over, looking at it from every angle. Little by little, over the years, that job – that role – he'd cast himself into, had expanded. Sammy was always at the centre, the one who had to be protected at any cost, but he felt the same way about most of the people he came into contact with, had saved or helped in whatever way had been possible. The failures, the failure to protect, had been mounting up and the ghosts that haunted him could not be laid to rest. He had to listen to them, had to see them, had to know that it'd been his fault, his weakness, that had caused their deaths.

_What they did, what they gave up, it's seen and remembered. You don't have to be the guardian of those memories._

Benny's voice said quietly into his thoughts. How'd he gotten to the point where everything in the world seemed to rest solely on him, he wondered? When had he stopped looking at the life as a risky proposition and decided it was punishment for the damned?

_When you lost your backup_, he thought, eyes narrowing at the road with the absolute certainty of that knowledge. Jim, Caleb and then his father. He hadn't needed many people. Not many at all to trust, to put his back against. But he'd needed them.

Their loss, in a matter of days, had left him with the sole responsibility of making sure Sam was safe, as safe as he could keep him. Left him with the decision-making responsibility from then on, the successes far outweighed in his mind by the mistakes he'd made, the choices that had gone to hell … the things he'd done.

From the corner of his eye, he caught a flicker of movement and he turned to see Sam blinking, pushing himself back against the seat back.

"Where are we?"

"Whoa. Sam?"

His brother's face scrunched up, probably at his expression. "What?"

"Okay, take it easy," Dean said hurriedly, looking back at the road. "Are you, uh, how you feeling?"

"Tired," Sam said, turning to look back out through the windshield, shifting uncomfortably in the seat. "Like I've slept for a week."

"Well, try a day," Dean told him. "Been out since the sky was spittin' angels."

"What the hell happened?"

Dean stared at the road, his stomach full of fluttery shivers. "What do you remember?"

"Uh, the church … feeling like crap," Sam said, brow creasing a little. "The angels falling and … that's it."

"But you're feeling good?"

"Yeah," Sam looked back at him. "I mean, I just … um … what, you've been driving around with me passed out in the passenger seat for a day?"

"Ah, no, I stopped, you know," Dean said flippantly, watching the road as relief coursed through his veins. "Let a few Japanese tourists take some pictures, nobody got too hazy."

He could just see Sam's mouth twist up, in his peripheral vision.

"I knew you'd pull through," he said, flicking a sideways glance at him. "I meant what I said at the church," he added. "You're capable of anything, Sam, the hell if you didn't prove me right."

"That's - uh - good, I guess," Sam said, meeting his eyes in the semi-darkness, then turning away. Was that laughter he could hear, somewhere far distant? "You better catch me up."


	3. Chapter 3 Out of the Blue

**Chapter 3 Out of the Blue**

* * *

><p><em><strong>Moberly, Missouri<strong>_

Sam wiped his mouth and wadded the wrappings into a tight ball, lobbing it into the trash can a few yards from the picnic table.

Looking at him over his burger, Dean lifted a brow. "How was the food?"

"Ambrosial," Sam told him, turning back to look at him. "Smelled right, tasted better."

"Good."

"It's over, I don't know if that … whatever it was … was just the final hiccup, but it's all gone, Dean," Sam said, running both hands through his hair and pushing it back from his face as he looked around the grassed area. "I thought I was going to die anyway."

Dean took a bite of the burger and looked away. "Yeah, well, you didn't," he muttered through the mouthful.

Sam nodded. "So, uh, Cas is human?"

"Ish," Dean qualified, swallowing. "I mean, he's got no Grace, no wings, no … harp, or whatever the hell else he had."

"Okay," Sam said. "And where'd he crash land?"

"Called me from a payphone in Longmont, Colorado," Dean said, shrugging. "I told him just make for the bunker."

"You think he can handle a road trip like that?"

"Cas' a big boy," Dean said, chewing and swallowing the last bite and crushing the wrapping in one hand. "Things go bad, he knows our number."

He got up and stretched, walking around the table to the trash can and dropping the wrappings in. "Right now, I got bigger worries."

"The fallen angels?"

"Yeah." Dean scanned the rest area automatically. "I mean, thanks to Metatron, we now have a few thousand confused loose nukes walking around down here."

"What do you think they're gonna do?" Sam asked, his attention on the traffic on the nearby highway. It felt like he'd been out of it for a lot longer than a day. Noises seemed to attract his senses too easily.

Dean looked at him, the sudden wish to be able to talk to him about what'd happened, about what the angels had said, about Cas and – and just every-fucking-thing, hastily suppressed.

"I got no damn clue," he told him.

Sam looked around. "What about Crowley? he asked, "You, uh –?"

He made a fast slashing gesture across his throat.

"I would've loved nothing better than to ice that Limey bitch," Dean said, a half-smile lifting one side of his mouth slightly. "But then I thought to myself … what would Sam Winchester do?"

Sam frowned. "I'd've stabbed him in the brain," he said bluntly.

"Oh." His brother blinked.

He looked down and shrugged slightly. "Well, I figured the King of Hell might know a few things, so why not wrap him to go and see what he thinks of our dungeon."

He got up, pulling the car keys from his pocket and walking back to the car.

"Wait," Sam said, sliding off the table and hurrying after him. "So Crowley – is – alive?"

Dean opened the trunk and lifted the lid. "Oh yeah," he said, looking down at the demon, trussed and bound under a very old devil's trap painted on the interior of the trunk lid. "He's the junk in my trunk."

Sam looked at Crowley's face, the demon's dark eyes wide over the wide strip of silver tape that was effectively gagging him. "Huh."

Dean closed the lid. "Let's roll."

* * *

><p><em><strong>US-36W, Kansas<strong>_

"So, angel swords, holy oil – how are we getting that, by the way? Didn't Cas have to go to Jerusalem to get it?" Sam asked, watching the fields flash by, reddened by the setting sun, the long shadows stark and black.

Dean shook his head, fingers resting lightly on the wheel, the car eating the miles. "I gave Colin a heads-up about it the last time we were there," he said. "Hannah's family made a special trip out with about twelve gallons. Cleaned out some temple."

Sam smiled. "That's good."

"Yeah, prepared for a change," Dean agreed readily. "Got a couple of bottles in the trunk."

"We have to do the wardings on the bunker."

"And the car."

"Anything else?"

"Like what?" he asked warily. He was crap at lying to his family. He knew that. The whole concept went completely against everything he still believed in.

"I don't know," Sam said, turning to look at him. "I thought maybe Cas had some other ideas about keeping off angel radar?"

"No, he didn't say anything that we didn't already know," Dean said, resisting the urge to wipe the dampness he could feel on his hands on his jeans. "What about Kevin?"

"He's started on the angel tablet, you said?"

"Yeah, Cas asked him to look for anything related to the Heaven trials, before, uh everything else happened."

"Well, hopefully he's figured something out," Sam said, leaning back against the passenger door and yawning. "How do you want to handle Crowley?"

Dean felt a thread of relief at the change in topic and relaxed again. "Torture's no good, at least not the physical stuff, he's got too many defences."

"Right," Sam agreed. "What about mental? He was damned close to breaking Dean, he was talking about his past and about being loved."

Dean snorted. "Well, that's different."

"I was thinking, maybe a sort of oubliette situation?"

"Solitary in the hole," Dean considered. "Yeah, that'd have more of an effect. Time to think, no effort required from us."

Deep in his mind, he could hear a faint wailing. He shut it out, feeling his body flush with heat. _No time alone for you, Dean_, the demon's voice had whispered hoarsely against his ear. _Time to build your defences against me? I don't think so_.

"You alright?"

He blinked and flicked a sideways look at his brother. "Yeah. Yeah, just wondering how long it'll take."

"He's gregarious, narcissistic, needs attention and approval and like I said, he was close to breaking," Sam mused. "But he's also tough and he'll know what we're trying to do. It won't be days."

"No," Dean said. More like weeks or months. It didn't matter. The number of problems they had currently, there'd be time to let Crowley sweat.

"And Cas said Metatron took his Grace for some kind of spell, the one that pushed all the angels out and locked up Heaven?"

"That's what he said."

"You think the angels are going to be gunning for him now?"

Damned kid thought fast. He swallowed and forced himself to lift one shoulder in a careless shrug. "It's a possibility. None of those dicks have much of a sense of humour."

"So, we'll need to figure out a way to protect him," Sam continued. "You sure you're alright with him making his own way to Lebanon?"

"We've got other things we need to do, Sammy," Dean said firmly. "Cas'll have to survive on his own."

He hoped the dumb-assed angel would take the advice he'd given, but he wasn't counting on it.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Eugene, Oregon<strong>_

The house was derelict and had been condemned for the last fifteen years, abandoned thirty years before that. Smoke and mould and unidentifiable fungi mottled the walls and floors and ceilings, discolouring the plaster and hiding the architectural details. It was silent, except for the slurring noise of the body bag as it was dragged over the damp and swollen timber floors.

The man pulling the bag through the house was in his early thirties, dark-haired and sallow-skinned, stocky and muscular. His eyes were a shining black, from corner to corner, the light of the candles, set along the rim of the cracked and filthy porcelain sink reflecting in them as he bent to unzip the bag.

Charred and blackened to the bone, the body shouldn't have weighed as much as it did. He'd had a hell of a job retrieving it from the small town morgue, killing the two technicians who'd been working the graveyard shift at the time. He looked down at the withered husk when the zipper was all the way down, then around the room, checking every marking, every symbol he'd painstakingly painted around the walls in human blood. Circling the ceiling above him, a thick, coiling ribbon of coal-black smoke writhed impatiently.

He lifted the corpse into the deep, cast-iron tub and turned away, taking the first of three bowls from the floor and spreading its contents evenly over the husk. The ritual was ancient, he would never have known of it if not for the archdemon's instructions, whispered into his mind.

_Your blood._

Nodding, he drew out a thick-bladed knife and made a long cut along his arm. He tightened his fist as he held it above the body, the blood of his vessel dripping out and splashing down into the tub.

In the lowest registers, the groaning was too deep for human hearing, felt in the vibrations through the joists and girders and beams of the house's foundations, through the bones and in the spaces of the skull. Light boiled in the depths of the bathtub, red and then gold, brightening to white in seconds and the twisting tendril of smoke arrowed down into it. The concussion as the incorporeal met the corporeal knocked the man back against the wall, his arm thrown over his face to block a brilliant flash of silvery light that was entirely too heavenly for any kind of hellspawn. Then it was gone, and the thin grey sunshine that penetrated the smeared dirt on the window filled the room again.

A hand appeared over the edge of the tub.

Long, elegant fingers tipped by blood-red fingernails. He saw smooth, creamy skin, a slender figure with voluptuous curves, long shapely legs, as the creature rose from the confines of the bath, standing upright, stretching higher with a delicately feminine and predatorily feline grace. The fall of rich, auburn hair tumbled over pale shoulders and framed a face that wasn't pretty, but was striking and, had the expression in the eyes been less murderous, could have been considered beautiful.

* * *

><p>Abaddon looked around, cat-green eyes narrowing in satisfaction. She had only two goals and neither were orders from any other. The world had changed and this time …this time, she was prepared for those changes.<p>

She looked down at the man sprawled against the wall. "Get the others."

He nodded, scrambling to his knees and backing out of the doorway.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

WHAP! _Twer-thud!_

Dean had twisted and ducked with the first sound as he came in through the order's door, and he straightened up, looking at the eight inches of protruding quarrel he could see sticking out of the doorframe where his head had been. He moved cautiously to the balcony's railing and looked down into the situation room.

Kevin stood on the steps to the library, the crossbow half-raised, smiling nervously. "Sorry!"

"What the –?" The crossbow was from the weapons room, Dean realised, walking down the iron steps.

"I panicked," Kevin elaborated as Dean hit the floor, meeting him by the war table. "It's been a bad couple of days. I haven't slept. I haven't eaten … I've been … backed up!"

Dean looked in bemusement at the kid's face, wide-eyed and desperate, and shook his head. "Okay, over-share," he commented mildly, taking the crossbow from him.

"After we talked, this place went nuts! There was some alarm, and all the machines were freaking out and-the-the-the bunker just LOCKED DOWN!" Kevin babbled furiously at him. "I couldn't open the door. My cell phone stopped working – I thought the world was ending!"

"Close," Dean admitted, walking past him and up the steps to the library. "The angels fell."

Kevin hurried after him. "What does that mean?"

"Nothing good," Dean called over his shoulder, heading for the weapons room. "And Kev? Next time the world's ending, you might wanna to grab a gun."

Stopping at the end of the library, Kevin listened to him replacing the crossbow on the wall of armament. "A gun? That's it? That's all you've got to say to me?! Grab a gun!?"

Dean sauntered back through the doorway at the end of the room, looking down at his cell.

"I got service here, man." He looked at Kevin. "You know, realistically speaking, this is probably the safest place for the end of the world."

Kevin wasn't listening. Dean watched him spin around and run back to the situation room. A second later, the clunk of a switch and the equipment that lined the walls of the room hummed and chattered, and he heard the deeper throb of the order's generators kick back in through the floor under his feet.

"It's back online," Kevin said as Dean came down the steps. "Maybe when you opened the door – from the outside – it reset the system?"

"Sure, let's go with that," Dean agreed readily. He'd been through the blueprints of the place, through the electrical plans and every scrap of paper he'd been able to find on the workings of the order's bunker, and he hadn't come across mention of a failsafe that locked the place down. Yavoklevich had called him at the hospital, advising the order knew of the situation and had scrambled to find a way to track the angels. He was okay with leaving that part to the ancient, razor-competent lawyer.

Both he and Kevin looked up as Sam came through the bunker's outer door and the heavy clunks of the locking rings resounded in the high-ceilinged room. Sam was manhandling Crowley, tied and gagged, head bagged in a black hood and ear protectors covering the demon's head, to the railing.

"All good?" Sam asked, looking down at them.

"Is it ever?" Dean muttered, turning to lead the way to the hidden room on level four.

Behind him, Kevin watched the man and demon move slowly down the iron staircase. Images assaulted him, memory and fear and rage, and he clenched his hands tightly to stop himself from shaking under their onslaught.

"Kevin, you alright?" Sam asked, slowing down as he walked past the prophet.

He forced himself to nod, turning away from them.

Sam frowned but shoved Crowley forward, keeping him upright as he stumbled up the broad, shallow steps to the library. He made a mental note to talk to Dean about the demon's affect on their prophet when they had Crowley locked safely down.

* * *

><p>The room – the <em>dungeon<em>, Dean'd dubbed it and now Sam couldn't stop thinking of it as that – was lit by a single overhead light. The chair directly under it was bolted and welded iron, a medieval-looking carver with a high back and broad, flat armrests. Behind the chair, an iron chain was anchored to the floor, culminating in a broad collar that kept the occupant of the chair firmly seated. To either side, two more chains embedded in the floor ended in old-fashioned iron cuffs, deeply engraved with the sigils of binding that were effective on, but not limited to, hellspawn. Sam shoved Crowley into the chair and Dean fastened the collar around the demon's neck, threading the engraved nuts onto the bolts that closed each side and tightening them with a wrench. Sam replaced the lighter steel cuffs Crowley was wearing with the dungeon's shackles, forcing the demon's arms flat against the armrests.

Looking at the chair, itself centred in an above-and-below devil's trap, and worked over with raised welds and engravings of the sigils against demonkind, Sam remembered Meg, in Bobby's living room. How much could've been averted if they'd had then what they had now, he wondered fruitlessly. Knew then, what they knew now. He pushed the thoughts aside as Dean pulled the hood from the demon's head. It was all too late.

Crowley blinked in the light, wincing as Dean pulled the silver tape from his mouth with a sharp rip then looking up at them.

"Hello –"

The blow, delivered with every ounce of Dean's hundred and eighty pounds behind it, hit him in the mouth and nose and slammed his head back against the high back of the chair, the metal ringing softly with the impact.

"Never get tired of doing that," Dean said, wadding up the hood and tape and tossing them to one side of the room.

Crowley felt the flow of blood in his mouth, palpating his swollen lips gently with the tip of his tongue and rethinking his approach. He looked around, frantically schooling his expression to neutrality to hide his shock at the shackles and chains, the stains on the concrete floor, the high cupboard to one side of the room, its doors standing open, the interior filled with all manner of tools that he was intimately familiar with.

"Homey," he said, turning his head back to look at them. "Where did you get this fantastic little hideout?"

"Alright," Sam said, holding a notepad and pen as he looked down at the demon. "Here's how it's gonna go. You're giving us the name of every demon on earth, and the people they're possessing."

"Am I?" Crowley looked at him. "Doesn't sound like me."

"How do you like the chair?" Dean asked, apropos of nothing. "Took me awhile to put it together."

"Very comfy, thanks," Crowley replied, eyes narrowing as he took in the deep satisfaction in the hunter's eyes.

"It's salt-encrusted iron. Got the idea from Bobby's panic room. It'll take a little time, but eventually you'll feel it, through your clothes," Dean told him lightly. "And those bolts, in the back and the seat? They're not too bad now, but after a while, boy, they do start to dig in."

Crowley shifted a little. "Fascinating."

"I saw you break down, Crowley," Sam said. "A part of you returned to being human, I saw it, I know it –"

"Blah, blah, boo-hoo," Crowley cut him off impatiently. "Done."

"Okay," Sam said, nodding.

"'Cos this is what I know," Crowley continued, his voice getting a little louder. He was stuck here, he recognised, trying to bury the thread of panic. Stuck here and getting out would be a matter of mind games, games he would have to win. "I'm not giving you anything. Why would I? You have no _leverage_, darlings."

He looked from Sam to Dean, not liking the lack of emotion in either of them. They were _always_ emotional, these two. It was unsettling to see the lack. "You're not gonna close the gates to Hell – because you _didn't_. You're not gonna kill me – because you _haven't_. So what's left?"

"We have a few ideas," Dean said, smiling lazily at him.

"Torture?" Crowley looked at him tiredly. "Brilliant. Can't wait to see Sam in stilettos, and a leather bustier. Really putting the S-A-M into S-&-M." He grinned at the discomfort on Sam's face and shook his head. "Honestly, boys, what are you going to do to me that I don't do to myself, just for kicks, every Friday night?"

He stopped as their expressions changed, exchanging small, knowing smirks with each other as they turned away and walked back to the doorway.

Sam stopped and looked back at him. "Hope you like your own company, Crowley."

"Have fun," Dean added as he pulled the rolling shelf that formed a half of the solid door closed. Sam closed the other side and a moment later, the shelves sealed together with a deep click, the lights going out and silence filling the cold room.

Crowley sat in pitch-darkness. The bolt-heads patterned over the chair were a little uncomfortable, pressing into him. The iron, wrapped around his neck and wrists, was heavy, and felt as if it might be warming. He couldn't see anything, the darkness filled with movement and specks of colour that shifted and writhed just out of his direct view.

He revised his thoughts on the matter of the Winchester's plan as the silence began to ring softly in his ears and the shapes that twisted in his periphery got larger, and closer.

* * *

><p>"What's Crowley doing here?! Why isn't he dead!? Why aren't you stabbing him right now!?" Kevin yelled at them as Dean and Sam walked back into the library.<p>

"Alright, chill out, Kevin," Dean said, stopping by the table and turning to look at the young prophet. "Alright? We need him."

"What?!"

"Kevin, look," Sam said calmly. "If we can get Crowley to give us the name of every demon he's got topside, we can hunt them down. All of them."

Kevin's face screwed up in disbelief. "All of them? Around the _world_, Sam? You gonna _fly_, Dean? 'Cause, I'm pretty sure that Italy has a demon problem, and the Middle East, China, North Korea –"

"Kevin, calm down," Dean said, shaking his head to hide the slight flinch at the word 'fly'. "We got the King of Hell sittin' in our dungeon. He can bring all the demonspawn back to home soil. We just gotta be pati–"

"You're kidding! He killed my mother!"

"He _will_ break," Dean told him, his voice deepening a little, patience thinning. "And when he does, we'll hold him down while you knife him. Then we'll all go out for ice-cream and strippers, okay?"

"Just stay away from him," Sam said to Kevin, brow creased as he looked warningly at the boy.

Kevin looked away. Dean watched the emotions wash transparently over his face. The sad thing was, he knew exactly how Kevin felt, but he couldn't let the kid run amok now. They had a big fucking ace and they were gonna use it.

Same old story, he thought, turning away. No time for anyone. The big picture ruled everything. He remembered yelling at Cas about that, once upon a time, and he turned back to the prophet.

"Kevin, we're going to set it right, I promise you," he said more gently, feeling Sam's gaze turn to him in surprise and ignoring it. "But we have to do this smart, for once. We find the demons and send their asses back down to the pit. And we take Crowley once that's done. No loose ends."

"Fine," Kevin acceded finally, looking down at the floor as he got control of the rage that was burning inside him, dampening down the images in his head. "What now?"

Dean felt his tension dissipate and crank up at the same time as he turned to look at Sam. "I gotta make some calls." He looked back at Kevin. "You need to hit the angel tablet – we need the spell that Metatron used to empty out Heaven."

"Yeah, maybe we can reverse it before the god-squad does too much damage," Sam agreed, looking at Kevin.

"If we're lucky," Dean muttered. "Check the net for anything angel-y?"

"Or demon-y," Sam said, nodding.

"Or … whatever," Dean said, pulling out his cell. "Yavoklevich said they'd be running their searches against every database they can access as well, he might have an update by now."

Sam turned for the situation room as Kevin headed for the office he'd taken over to study the tablet. Dean scrolled down the list of numbers in his phone and pressed the first one. Every hunter needed to know what was going on and Garth was still MIA … MIA presumed dead, he thought uneasily. He wondered absently what Charlie was doing as the phone on the other end of the line rang. There had to be a way to use her skills, especially now when data mining was going to be the only way they'd get a lead on what was going on.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Eugene, Oregon<strong>_

Abaddon looked around the dimly-lit room in satisfaction.

The quarter square mile at the outskirts of the town had been evacuated and abandoned in 1974, the result of an explosion in one of the experimental labs of the town's major business, the Vandoren Chemical Company. Six hundred and eighty tons of vaporised chemicals, including TCDD, soluble in water and environmentally persistent, had been detonated into the immediate atmosphere, settling over and infiltrating the fields and farmland of the surrounding countryside, coating the local reservoir and shrouding the several blocks in both directions surrounding the factory. The immediate fallout had been responsible for a significant number of livestock deaths, and an escalating variety of birth defects and deformities of both the human and animal population in the area. The local population had blamed the company, but it'd been the factory's manager who'd seen the opportunity for misery and mischief. Frank Dupont had been possessed for almost a year when he left the factory after turning the vent scrubbers off and closing the pressure relief valves on the air circulation pumps in the experimental laboratory.

Now, it was a wasteland. Nothing grew in the greyish, powdery soil that sometimes glowed eerily in the night. No living creature inhabited the decrepit and slowly rotting buildings that had made up the local neighbourhood. The water that seeped from the ground in rainstorms was discoloured and smelled sharply of melting batteries.

She looked at the six demons who stood patiently on one side of the room, none of them speaking or moving, and rose slowly from the moth-eaten chair.

"You know who I am." It wasn't a question but all six nodded, keeping their eyes averted.

Time had passed her by, on the outside, in the world. Not much time, it had to be admitted, but enough that things had changed almost beyond her ability to adjust to. Almost.

"When did Crowley become King of Hell?"

At that, the demons facing her slid sideways glances at each other.

"It was almost immediately after Lucifer was sent back to the Cage," the demon inhabiting the tall, blonde woman at the end of the line said diffidently.

"And how?" Abaddon asked, strolling slowly toward her. "How was it, that a _salesman_, a crossroads demon of no particular importance, turned from a human soul, was able to grasp and hold onto that power?"

The demon looked down at her feet. "No one knows that, not for sure."

"No one knows," Abaddon repeated without inflexion.

"There's a rumour," the demon in the swarthy meatsuit offered hesitantly.

"A rumour? In Hell. How surprising."

He looked away. "Azazel was destroyed, then Samhain, Alastair and finally Lilith," he said carefully.

"I heard," Abaddon said tersely. The three highest of the demons serving Lucifer. But Azazel had not been a human-born demon. Azazel had Fallen, had been her brother, her comrade-in-arms, fellow traitor.

"When Lucifer was cast down," the demon continued, aware of the sweat beading his forehead, staining the shirt beneath his arms and down his back. "The rumour was that Crowley found something, in the lowest levels. Something that gave him power."

"What kind of something?" Abaddon asked, stopping in front of him. She saw the droplets of perspiration rolling down from his hairline, over his cheek and dripping from his jaw. "Speak up, your fear is commendable but unneeded. I will not kill the messenger for the message."

"I'm not sure," he said, lifting his gaze reluctantly to meet the archdemon's. "Some said it was a staff, or a sceptre. Others said it was a crown. Or a throne."

Abaddon's lips curved slowly up. A staff. Or a sceptre, she thought, amusement trickling through the cracks in the darkness that filled her. Or a _sword_.

"Has anyone seen it, this thing of power that Crowley has?"

"No." The demon looked down. "He called us and he could control the souls, on every level, and we believed."

"Yes," Abaddon said, turning away from them. "I bet you did."

She pivoted around, her gaze moving from face to face. "Well, the King is dead," she told them, eyes watching their expressions. "Long live the Queen."

"We didn't feel his death," the demon at the other end of the line said, almost apologetically, her meatsuit aged and overweight. "Not the way we felt it when Lucifer … fell."

"He was a crossroads demon," Abaddon told her sharply. "Not the rightful heir."

She saw the slight doubt in the demon's face and considered it for a moment. "And the plan has changed. There are forty-seven hundred demons on this plane, right now. They are scattered and ill-informed. The angels have fallen and are helpless to stop us, and this is our time, our chance to take dominion over every living creature on earth and bring Hell to earth."

"Your, uh, majesty," the blonde said cautiously. "The upper hierarchy, and Lucifer himself, they were all killed by the same men."

"Yes, the Winchesters," Abaddon said, her smile widening. "True spoilers or merely in the right place at the wrong time? It's difficult to say with certainty. But they are high on my list of things to do. In fact, until we verify that Crowley is definitely dead, and recover the … object … in his possession, the Winchesters have made the top of the list."

She looked at them. "Hunters are an interesting breed. And these two have more luck on their side than is credible. So. We will make sure that when we take them, we are thoroughly prepared." Glancing at the demon in the older woman at the end of the line, her mouth turned down in distaste. "And it will not be in the bodies of Grandma Jones or Corporate Jane," she said, turning away. It was her time and she was ready. Even the one who'd betrayed the scholars wouldn't be able to stop her now.

"Hell will rise," she said, her voice gaining volume as she walked toward the door. "With an army pouring through every Gate, an army that will devour both humanity and those angels who dare to stand in our way."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

Dean walked down the hall toward the kitchen, the cell against his ear as his stomach growled.

"Fallen angels," he said to the hunter on the other end of the line.

There was a silence on the line for a moment. "That's a wrinkle," Irv said slowly.

"Yeah, well, trust me, they're just monsters with good PR," Dean told him, turning the corner into the big kitchen and going to the fridge. "So, the tricky part is you need to get hold of holy oil to contain them and/or fry them."

"Holy oil," Irv said flatly. "I read about that. In Jerusalem, ain't it?"

"Yeah, I know," Dean grimaced, pulling out a bottle of beer. "Colin and Hannah brought some in as soon as they heard about the situation, you can stock up from them, or Hannah said that her cousin in Missoula might have some as well." He looked at the bottle and set it on the counter, going back to the freezer and pulling out three steaks. "Oh, and if they drop a silver sword, grab it, 'cause those pig-stickers come in handy for angels or demons."

"Okay," Irv said, a little doubtfully. "Criminy, I thought it was bad a couple of years ago."

Dean heard the reticence in the older man's voice. "Hey, man, I know this is weird."

"No, Dean, weird's what we do, right?" Irv's tone shifted, becoming more prosaic. "Alright, I got it. I'll be heading east in a couple of days, I can go through Pine Bluff, stop and see Colin. And tell the others. You caught up with Twist and Francis yet?"

"No." Dean looked down at the rock-hard frozen meat and took it to the microwave. "Just going to voicemail. Pete too."

"I'll keep tryin'. Haven't heard from Garth in months neither."

No one had, Dean wanted to say but he couldn't make the words come out. "Yeah, us either."

"Well, anyone I get a hold of, I'll tell 'em to talk to you anyways," Irv told him. "And go see Colin about the holy oil. Haven't seen a lot of demon activity lately."

Dean hit the buttons for defrost and turned back to the table, picking up his beer and knocking the top off on the edge. "Small favours, right?"

The old man's chuckle ghosted over the line. "Right."

"Any problems, let me know, Irv," Dean said, swallowing a mouthful of the cold beer as he heard the chuckle at the other end of the line.

"I'll do that."

The call cut out and he looked down at the list on the small screen. Fourteen he'd managed to through to, eleven he couldn't reach. And he had no idea of how many other hunters were out there, out of the loop with Lucifer's rising, the Leviathan invasion, and Crowley's recent rampaging. Garth had told him, when they'd seen him in Missouri, that he'd managed to track down at least fifty hunters, working all over the US. Yavoklevich had informed that the order knew of at least a dozen small networks, working in isolated family groups mostly, as well. The lawyer might be able to warn those hunters. He hadn't been able to find anything of Garth's on the Fizzle's Folly that gave him any information on the network the scrawny hunter had been developing.

The microwave beeped insistently and he pulled out the mostly thawed steaks, lighting the broiler and putting them under it, dialling the next number on the list. Yolanda and her partner were still in contact with quite a few hunters, he thought, listening to the phone ring. They might be able to spread the word further.

* * *

><p><em><strong>US-95 S, Nevada<strong>_

The sun baked the road, the car and the girl, sparkling off the mica in the gravel mix on the shoulder as the white van slowed down to take a better look at the long legs emphasised by raggedly high cut-off denim shorts and caramel-coloured cowboy boots. The girl looked up, tossing back a mane of loose, black hair as the driver checked his mirrors and pulled over beside her.

"Need some help?" he asked, leaning over to the volume of the radio down slightly.

The girl looked up, a ruefully worried smile showing white teeth against smooth, tan skin. "Yeah, I think the, uh, thingy, broke," she said, gesturing to the engine under the open trunk lid.

The driver of the van glanced at the engine, his face screwing up slightly. "Well, I could give you a lift into town?"

"That would be … amazing," she said to him, the smile widening with a hint of more experience than her appearance gave credit for. "Thanks."

He watched her in the side mirror as she leaned into the car's interior and pulled a backpack from the front seat. Dinner and a show, he thought with a self-satisfied grin.

Traci walked around the nose of the van, the smile becoming a little forced as she held it there by will. The stretch of road had seen five attacks in the last two months. All young women. All the bodies found with their throats torn, the bodies drained of blood. The guy smirking to himself in the driver's seat could've been just an off-the-rack perv looking to get some on his way to nowhere but she'd seen the van around since she'd arrived, coming and going at peculiar times and she was pretty sure she had herself a winner.

_Don't get cocky_, Martin's voice said in her mind and she ducked her head, obeying the memory of the dead man without thinking about it. Most vamps hunted together. She had a backup plan if the van held more than just the driver, but she was hoping he was alone.

"You live around here?" he asked as she climbed into the van's passenger seat and pulled the door shut.

"No, just passing through," she told him, glancing into the back as she stowed her backpack on the floor. Empty.

"Me too, just visiting friends," he told her. "You look like you like to party?"

Subtle, she thought derisively, looking across at him and smiling coyly. "Oh, yeah, I love to party."

"Alriiiight. Name's Lloyd." He put the car in first and pulled back onto the deserted highway. "There's a nice place, down near the river, a bit further on."

She nodded noncommittally and let her gaze wander over the van. In the warmth of the close air, she could smell blood, the faint copperish reek so familiar to her that she'd have known it anywhere. For a second, the van and the vampire and sunny day disappeared and she fell into darkness and screams and panic and horror. Then it was gone, the vampire was saying something and she'd missed it.

"Sorry, what?"

He turned to look at her, his face expressionless. "Just wondering if you'd like a cold one?"

"Sure," she said quickly. "I'd love one."

He pulled over, parking beneath a stand of trees back from the shoulder and leaned toward her. "They're in the back."

"More comfortable back there anyway, don't you think?" she said, forcing herself to smile into his eyes. She could see the faint red tinge to the whites as he leaned closer, could smell the scent of rotting flowers and the deeper taint of decomposition beneath that, on his breath, on his skin.

"Got that right, little lady."

Opening the door, she slid out, snagging the backpack and unzipping the top as she heard his door open and close. The two doors behind the passenger door were unlocked and she opened one, climbing in and holding her breath as the scent of blood in the hot space filled her nose and mouth.

He blocked the light as he filled the doorway behind her and she moved deeper into the van, turning away from him, her fingers closing around the cross-hatched hilt of the long, thick-bladed machete in her pack. He pulled the door shut and was just turning back to her, smiling and the fangs descending to cover his teeth when she pulled the blade from the pack and swung it, her weight awkwardly placed in the tight confines of the van's interior, but the razor-sharp edge slicing through skin and tendon and muscle and bone with barely any resistance. The head thumped on the cheap, synthetic carpet squares covering the floor and rolled down to the rear as his body dropped.

Looking down at the body, she said, "Actually Lloyd, I'm not really much of a party girl."

_Give the cops whatever you can so's they can close their cases on the vics but don't leave the monster bodies for them to find_. Another bit of advice from the hunter who'd given his life for hers. She looked around, hunching over a little as she walked to the rear to pick up Lloyd's head. The teeth hadn't retracted in death and she'd either have to burn it and the body, or find a place to dump them so that they'd be rotten by the time anyone found them. Wiping off the blade on Lloyd's shirt, she slid it back into her pack, and pulled the strap over her shoulder.

He'd said something about a river, and she looked through the windshield, seeing the gravel road he'd pulled onto continuing into the sparse woods. A river would do.

* * *

><p>Traci was watching the current tug the body further from the shore, her arms aching and her shirt damp with sweat from the effort of getting it out of the van and into the water when she registered the presence of someone behind her. Spinning around, her hand already drawing the slim knife from her belt, she froze in panic when the man standing too close to her smiled and his eyes blinked into solid black.<p>

"Someone wants to see you," he said, catching her wrist as she belatedly swung the knife at him, his thumb pressing cruelly into the nerve centre and the blade winking as it dropped to the grassy bank.

Her vision disappeared as he twisted her arm tightly up behind her back and she felt hands pulling a hood down over her head, fingers gripping her shoulders. More than one, she had time to think before something hit the back of her head and consciousness fled.

* * *

><p><em><strong>I-15 S, Utah<strong>_

"I can take a shift, if you wanna crash?" Sam offered, looking at his brother's profile in the dim lights of the dash. This was the third cross-country haul they'd made in less than a week and he saw the hollows under Dean's eyes, under the cheekbones that were sharp-edged again.

"Nah, I'm good for a few more hours," Dean said lightly, brushing the offer off. He felt like something a dog had eaten and later thrown up, the few hours of sleep he'd had the previous evening had been filled with dark rooms and voices, speaking to him about things he couldn't remember but that had lingered with a sense of uneasiness through waking and the rest of the day. His brother had told him that he felt fine, which was all great and dandy, but he wasn't sure how fine Sam really was, with the angel tinkering around inside.

Aware of Sam's gaze, he added, "What came over the wire about the soldiers?"

"Not soldiers," Sam corrected him absently, looking down at his notes. "Civilians who were using a military/community bus. Six dead, plus the driver found dead in a dumpster along the route, his throat charred to a crisp."

"And the others? What was their COD?"

"Unknown when the report was filed," Sam read, tilting the notebook slightly to catch the small amount of ambient light in the car. "Just dead on the bus."

"And demon sign for three miles in every direction," Dean said.

Sam nodded. "Thunderstorms, electrical discharges and fluctuations. Kevin checked the base hospital, there were four heart attacks at the same time."

"Why're they advertising themselves so loud?"

"Got me." He tucked the notebook back in his jacket pocket and leaned back. "Did you get hold of everyone?"

Dean snorted. "Not even close," he said, his mouth curled down disparagingly. "Got about eleven on Garth's list who aren't answering. No call-forwarding, no messages, no nothing but the accounts are still up."

"They might've ditched the old phones?"

"Might've."

"Who's missing?" Sam heard the doubt in his brother's voice.

"Aside from Garth?" Dean thought of the hunters he hadn't been able to contact. Some of them, he knew, from back when he'd been hunting with his father. Others were just names, a little bit of rep from Garth or someone else, but nothing concrete. "Twist Pendleton. Abe Montrose. Riley and Cooper. Denny Farrer. Clair Robertson."

Sam listened to the names. Riley and Coop he knew, had met them years ago with his father and brother on a collaborative hunt to take down a pack of skinwalkers in the Arizona desert. He hadn't been on that hunt, but he remembered the low-ceilinged, smoky bar at the end of it, sitting and listening to the hunters skate over the more horrific details and find the amusing things that had happened, ribbing each other over beers and shots. Dean had been seventeen and had gone out with them, and that night, he'd seen his older brother revelling in the aftermath of danger and blood and pain, ignoring his tightly taped ribs as he'd basked in the camaraderie of the men around them. Sam remembered feeling ambivalent at the time. A part of him had wanted to be in that circle of hard-edged men. Another part had wanted nothing to do with them or the life they lived.

"Flash Taylor and Joanie McGhee," Dean finished, his voice harder. "The order found the last three on the list dead, but not recent."

"What killed them?"

"Ike died of a heart attack, in his home. Clogged arteries so passed off as natural death," Dean elaborated. "Davies got himself shot by the husband of some chick he'd been seeing, and Rhonda Carrigan had a blood alcohol reading of point-eleven when her landlady found at the bottom of the staircase one Sunday morning."

"More or less natural causes then."

"More or less," Dean agreed.

"Riley and Coop, I remember," Sam said. "Did you know any of the others?"

"Knew Abe, Twist and Clair." Dean loosened his grip on the wheel. "The others came from Garth."

"Seems like a lot still out there?"

Flicking another sideways glance at him, Dean said, "Yeah, but getting less all the time."

Sam looked out the passenger window, the moon full but faint, barely showing the shapes of the landscape they passed through. There were a lot more hunters around than he'd realised. And some were known, known to his brother. Some were friends.

The silence between them stretched out and Dean leaned forward, fingertips finding the edge of the tape and pushing it in. He left the volume low and the entwined guitars filled the car's interior softly.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Coronado, California<strong>_

They flashed their tin at the base guard and were directed to the taped-off crime scene, the bus parked askew at the edge of a wide, concrete parking lot.

"Smell that?" Sam asked, nose wrinkling up as he got out of the car.

Dean nodded, pulling out the flat ID wallet and heading for the bus. "Wonder what their forensics team are making of this."

Glancing at him, Sam shrugged. What conclusions could even a highly-trained team come to, he thought sourly?

An MP, a dark-haired, wiry woman in camouflage fatigues, stopped them before they could get close to the bus.

"Agents Rodgers and Kirke, ma'am," Dean said, flipping open the ID and holding it out. To his surprise, she took the billfold and Sam's, looking over both carefully before handing them back.

"How can I help you, Agents?" the MP asked. Dean felt his internal alarm buzz. No nonsense, by the book, a pain in the ass.

"We just want to take a look around," Sam told her soothingly, replacing his wallet in his jacket pocket and gesturing vaguely toward the bus nearby.

"Why?" She looked from Sam to Dean, her chin lifting slightly. "This is a military investigation, gentlemen, not a federal one."

"You have six dead civilians on your bus, ma'am," Sam countered calmly. "And we have a case in Illinois of a woman whose throat was burned out, just like your driver, that makes it our jurisdiction. You want to call our office, check it out."

Dean glanced at his brother, hiding a flash of admiration. "Our AD," he added, pulling out a card and handing it to her.

"I'll do that," she said, taking the card and pulling out a cell as she looked at the card.

The number on the card went to a bank of phone operators in Pennsylvania but the number that was returned to the cell had a Washington prefix. So far as they knew, they were the only hunters but not the only the operatives working with the order and the protocols for the deception of regular law enforcement agencies had been in place for a long, long time.

"This is Sergeant Miranda Bates. I need to speak to Assistant Director Hickman."

Dean ducked his head to look at the ground when the MP moved the cell slightly away from her ear as a gruff male voice blasted out of the speaker. He hadn't met Jack Hickman, who'd been fielding their calls in the last six months, but over the phone, Jack had a staccato delivery and plenty of volume.

Sergeant Bates listened for three minutes, her mouth occasionally opening to say something, closing again when the tirade in her ear continued without the slightest pause.

"Yes, sir," she said finally and looked at the cell, the call obviously finished.

"Alright. Seems like we're working on the same thing," Sergeant Bates admitted to them unwillingly. "Anything you find goes straight to our team, and I'll let them know that you're to have a copy of our file."

"Thank you, ma'am," Dean said, repressing his desire to smile severely. He doubted even Bobby could've pulled that off with this chick.

"Where's the driver's body?" Sam asked, his conciliatory tone gone.

"It's at the base hospital," she told him, gesturing out of the lot toward a tall building behind a row of trees. "I'll let them know you're coming."

Nodding, they looked at the bus then each other. "I'll take the bus," Sam said. Dean nodded and turned back for the car.

* * *

><p>An hour later, Dean climbed onto the bus, mouth closing abruptly at the ripe smell of decomposition that filled the small area like a thick fog.<p>

"Bit early, isn't it?" he asked Sam who was bending over the dead man near the rear.

Shaking his head, Sam gestured to the door and they both drew in deeper breaths outside.

"Those bodies have been dead for months, maybe years," Sam told him quietly. "One guy died of a gunshot, hole all closed up but I think the bullet's still there."

"Demon kept him alive and kicking until it traded up to a Special Force soldier?" Dean asked, looking around.

"Yeah. What'd you find at the morgue?"

"Nice handprint, not a man's according to the assistant ME, went all the way through the meat and burned the bones."

"Agents?"

They both turned to see Sergeant Bates walking toward them. "We pulled this off the CCTV of the lot."

On the tablet she held, a black and white video played, fritzing into static as six figures seemed to be disembarking the bus.

"We can't isolate the cause of the interference, but we're working on cleaning it up."

"Ma'am, can I have a copy of that? Our people might be able to do something with the image," Sam said, digging a flash drive from his jacket.

"Knock yourself out," she said, holding the tablet as he inserted the drive and copied the footage. "If your boys get through it faster than ours, you'll send it over, right?"

"Absolutely," Sam muttered distractedly, pulling the drive when the download was complete.

She nodded and walked away and Dean cocked a brow at his brother. "Our people?"

"Charlie and Kevin," Sam said, looking up and grinning at him as he inserted the drive into his phone. "Can you think of anyone better?"

"Actually, no." Dean admitted. "We got time to eat?"

"After the smell on that bus?" Sam asked disbelievingly.

"What? Fresh air here. I'm starving." He turned away and headed for the car. "You coming?"

* * *

><p>The beep of Sam's phone was loud in the quiet bar, and Sam put his fork down to pick it up, looking around and switching to speaker.<p>

"_Sam? I got the images, they're still a bit wiggy but you can make out the faces," _Charlie's voice sounded tinny and far-off.

Putting the phone on the table between them, the brothers hunched over it as the file loaded. Sam forwarded through the soldiers' climbing off the bus and walking out of frame, freezing the last image and zooming in on the slightly out-of-focus image. He advanced the frames until the figure was clear of the bus, face mostly hidden by a dark cap, recognisable nonetheless.

"Abaddon," Dean said softly, staring at the woman's face beneath the cap. He looked up at his brother. "Thought you Kentucky-fried that bitch?"

"I did, Dean," Sam said, running a hand through his hair.

"_Bitches? You got what you needed?"_

"Yeah, Charlie, thanks," Sam said, ending the call.

"Then how'd she get the body back?" Dean looked at him accusingly. "And why's she playing with GI Joes?"

"No clue," Sam snapped, forehead wrinkling up as a thought hit him. "Those bodies, the civilians on the bus –"

Dean looked at him, and caught the same thought. "Ordinary."

"Yeah."

He suddenly remembered Charlie's looping dream. _Super-soldier vampires_. "So now we got super-soldier demons?"

"Seems like."

"Awesome!"

Sam picked up his phone, hitting the speed dial. "Kevin? Yeah, no, forgot about that for a minute, can you pull the military files of the six soldiers from the bus – I'm sending you the names now. No, I need everything, training, ops, physical, personal, whatever you can find. Thanks."

Dean looked at him. "They're demon-charged, think knowing what they were good at before's gonna help?"

Tucking his phone back into his pocket, Sam picked up his fork and starting eating. "Better than finding out they're experts in explosives when the building's coming down on us, don't you think?"

* * *

><p><em><strong>I-15 N, 25 miles to Barstow, California<strong>_

Sam watched his brother's fingers drumming softly against the steering wheel. Dean was a pretty damned good poker player … when he was aware of being watched. When he wasn't, it was a different matter.

Something was gnawing at him, Sam thought. It could've been the angels, or worry about Cas, or about Crowley, Abaddon, Kevin or the hunters they hadn't been able to find. Could've been. Sam didn't think it was.

Those things had solutions, not easy ones, but still there were ways of dealing with them and his brother was nothing if not solution-oriented. Whatever it was that was causing the barely-visible thrum of tension in him now, it didn't have a solution, or at least, Dean hadn't been able to think of one yet.

Sam twisted around in the seat, looking for the exact position where he could stretch out his legs in the well under the dash. It could've been worry about him, he thought. They hadn't really talked about what had happened to him, after the angels had fallen. The blood was gone. Gone from him, burned out and purified. For the first time in his life, he was normal. He'd thought Dean would've been ecstatic over that, and maybe he was. Or maybe things had been happening so fast that his brother hadn't really registered that change yet.

He'd been scared at the church, Sam remembered abruptly. He hadn't heard that note of terror and panic in Dean's voice in years. Since the dark road in Cold Oak, in fact, he realised slowly. Dean'd thought he was dying. Was that the reason for the tension –?

His phone shrilled over the rumble of the engine and the hiss of the tyres and he pulled it out. Kevin's name glowed at him from the screen.

"Kevin, you get that –"

"_Sam, yeah, I got it, but this woman called and she wanted to talk to Dean, but then –"_ Kevin's voice was high and strained and Sam glanced at Dean, switching to speaker and holding the phone between them.

"Kevin, wait, slow down," he said, raising his voice a little.

He heard Kevin suck in a deep, noisy breath on the other end of the line. "She gave me these coordinates," he said, his voice returning to normal as he tried to speak clearly. _"Forty-four point zero-five-three-zero-five-one by negative one-two-three point one-two-seven-eight-six-zero, and four names – Irv Franklin, Traci Bell, Abe Montrose and Pete Rachmeyer."_

Sam looked at Dean.

"Irv, Abe and Pete we know," Dean said, brows drawing together. "Traci I never heard of."

"_Right, the lady said they were hunters and if you didn't go save them, she would kill them,"_ Kevin finished.

"Yeah, well, I've heard that song before."

"_Dean, who was she?"_

"She's the bad guy," Dean said shortly. "Kevin, new job. We need everything you can find on Knights of Hell," he added, leaning closer to the phone. "Should be on the tablet, but anything you can find in the order library as well. AKA The Fallen, they were the angels who were cast into the pit with Lucifer."

"_Knights of Hell,"_ Kevin repeated. _"Sure."_

"You find a way to kill one, and I mean _permanently_, drop a dime."

"Thanks, Kevin," Sam said, hanging up and typing in the numbers Kevin had given them.

"Coordinates are a location on the outskirts of Eugene, Oregon," Sam said, and Dean swore under his breath, checking the mirrors and road and slowing down to make a u-turn.

"We can pick up the 5 at Bakersfield," he told Sam distractedly, pulling out his memories of the roads that would get them to Eugene in the least amount of time. "Can you zoom in on that location, see down to ground level?"

"Yeah." Sam looked back at his phone screen. "You know this is a trap."

Dean snorted. "After they laid out the brass band and red carpet in Coronado? Yeah, it's a trap. Not as subtle as I thought she'd be."

"We're not just walking into?"

Dean was silent for a moment. "She'll expect us to do a certain amount of pussy-footing around, I think. Scoping the place out, setting up some diversions. We'll make sure that we aren't too far off the expected reaction, then we'll hit 'em hard."

"Two against six super-soldier demons?"

Grinning at him, Dean lifted a shoulder in a careless shrug. "We've got the ordnance on our side."

"I thought you said you didn't have all the ingredients?"

"Found just enough for one."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

_Knights of Hell_, Kevin thought, looking at the slick stone tablet on the table uneasily. He didn't want to touch it, he admitted unwillingly to himself. Didn't want to get sucked down into that hole where he was no longer himself, not even human, but just a pipeline to a voice that scared the crap out of him and made him feel utterly insignificant.

_Check the order's files first. _

It was a reasonable suggestion, he thought, pushing away the thought that the real answers, the most accurate answers, were right in front of him, held within the scratchings on the tablet that detailed everything in Hell. He could come back to the tablet if he couldn't find anything in the library.

_Coward._

Yeah, he thought, he was. He'd learned a few things about himself in the last two years of being a prophet of the Lord, many of them he'd never wanted to know. He wasn't a hero and he was afraid of pain and he hated the sense of disappearing that he felt every time his fingers touched the stones.

The card catalogue to the order's vast collection of lore and knowledge and artefacts was contained in a polished cabinet at the end of the library and he walked to it, opening the drawers under 'K' first, eyes widening slightly as he saw the number of items listed under the 'Knights of Hell'. Pulling out the cards, he scanned through them, already familiar enough with the codes that he could tell which were books and which were files that the order had on actual accounts of dealing with the archdemons.

There was enough reading here to keep him occupied for a good time, he thought, a little dazedly as he walked down the hall, clutching a handful of cards and heading for the lower levels. Maybe three or four years. At the back of his mind, a small voice whispered incessantly that the Winchesters needed all the help they could get and they needed it now. He pushed that voice aside, going down the stairs to the third level.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Nine hours later.<strong>_

The library tables were covered in books, parchments, scrolls and files and Kevin rubbed his eyes tiredly, looking at the few remaining cards he had left to check. Job files, he realised, stored on the second level. Maybe one of them would have the information he needed. He got up and headed for the stairs again.

The store rooms took up almost the whole level, shelving holding box files, racks with hanging files and row upon row of cabinets. At one time, there had been thirteen legacies in this building alone, he remembered Sam telling him. Along with the legacies, there'd been initiates and assistants, all working to document and prove or disprove the mythology of the world, not only here but in secret cells across the globe. He hadn't met the lawyer who took care of the order's worldly needs, but he'd already been given a set of identification and several bank cards to accounts for his personal requirements.

Personal requirements, he thought bleakly, hitting the light switch for the rooms at the end of the level. Not that he had any. The kitchen had food. He'd found himself a bedroom on the floor above the library. He'd bought himself a new toothbrush before Dean and Sam had left for California. A dollar ninety-five in the grocery store. Some requirement.

"Kevin? Kev, buddy, is that really you?"

The voice of the demon trickled out through the gaps between the shelves, low and sticky with anticipation, filling Kevin with a dread that curled like a viper in his stomach and an itch in his fingers for something sharp enough to carve his mother's entire name across the demon's body.

_Ignore him_, Kevin told himself firmly. Sam had said that Crowley was chained and bound in a way that he could not escape. _I beat you once, Crowley_, he told the demon silently. _I can do it again_.

"'Course it is, I'd recognise the pitter-patter of those little feet anywhere," Crowley said delightedly. He listened to the faint noises from the other room.

"Ah, told not to fraternise with the prisoner, Kev?" he called out. "You'd love the way I'm looking right now, all beaten and bloody I am."

Silence filled the space in between them and Crowley's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. "Not afraid of me now, are you, Kevin?"

In the store room, Kevin found the file on the shelf, his hand reaching for it and hesitating at the demon's words. Afraid, _yes_. Afraid he would kill the demon that the Winchesters were adamant that they needed. Afraid he wouldn't be able to kill Crowley. Afraid of the feelings that churned inside, rage and pain and fear and hatred that in all his years of a normal childhood and a normal teenager's life he'd never even got near.

"Gonna run away, Kev?" Crowley said, his voice dropping slightly, forcing the boy to strain to hear him. "But that's what you do. Run and hide and wait for Mommy or anyone else to rescue you." Crowley paused for a moment. "You're … what is the word? Oh yes, a coward."

Kevin froze at the well-aimed taunt. He'd thought it about himself less than five minutes ago, but coming from the demon it had a different impact. For a long moment he saw himself as he thought others saw him … as Dean or Sam saw him … as he thought his mother had sometimes seen him …

Weak.

Afraid.

_Breakable._

_I beat you before_, a voice that sounded like his screamed in his mind. He wouldn't have to touch the tablet if he could fool Crowley into telling him about the Knights. Wouldn't have to read through more mouldy, dusty tomes in search of the answers.

It honestly didn't occur to him that Crowley might not know the answer he wanted.

* * *

><p>Crowley looked at the door as the lock clicked and the two shelves split apart, hiding the grin of satisfaction quickly when he saw Kevin's stony expression.<p>

"Hiya, Kev," the demon said, only the faintest smirk tugging at his mouth. "What brings you to my humble and very temporary abode?"

"You can tell me how to kill a Knight of Hell," Kevin said abruptly, his gaze cutting around the room. It looked – it looked too much like Crowley's torture chambers.

"Abaddon giving you trouble, eh?" Crowley offered sympathetically. "Tell you what, you let me go and I'll spit-roast the little whore for you. Sound good?"

Looking at him, Kevin was surprised to realise that he recognised the edge to Crowley's voice, the edge that said the demon was playing with cards he didn't have.

"You don't know."

"Oh, I know plenty," Crowley said, leaning back in the chair and shifting his weight to ease the pressure of the bolts under him. "For example," he said, his voice rising expansively. "I know she'd love you; skinny, submissive … you're just her type."

Kevin paced away from the demon. "Shut up."

The demon chuckled softly. "Fine. It's not what you came for, is it Kev? Not really."

He watched the boy's eyes move from the blood-stained shackles against the walls to the open cupboard with its display of instruments that were designed and built for the infliction of pain, seeing the tension in Kevin's shoulders, the rounded lumps in his pockets where his hands were curled into fists.

"What's on your mind, Kevin?" Crowley asked him. "You can tell me. We've got a history, lad, we're friends."

Kevin looked at him disbelievingly. "You _tortured_ me."

"I torture all my friends," the demon said with a careless shrug. "It's how I show love."

"You killed my mother!"

"Did I?" Crowley asked him. "I mean, are you sure? Did you ever see a body? I mean, I know I told you I killed her, but we both know that unless it's a deal, I've been known to … well, bend the truth a little here and there, shall we say? How can you be sure she'd dead, Kev?"

The demon's words hit Kevin like stones, battering him with the implications, bludgeoning him with a rising dread and hope that were so intertwined he couldn't pick them apart, couldn't stand the uncertainty. He lurched toward Crowley and swung his fist, his rage flattening out the pain as his knuckles hit the demon's jaw.

Crowley spat out a mixture of spit and blood, turning his head to look at the boy. "Oh, Kev, Kev, not with your hands, mate, hurts you more than me that way. Dean can't feel a damned thing in his hands, that's the only reason he gets away with it," he said, grinning slyly up at Kevin then looking at the open cupboard. "Come on, you can do better than that, little man."

Kevin's gaze slid aside to follow the demon's. He looked back at the chair Crowley was bound to and turned away, striding to the cupboard.

Crowley watched him pull the heavy-headed hammer from the shelf, smiling a little as Kevin turned back to him. "That's right … let it all out."

_Demonkind exist for the creation of temptation and chaos and destruction_, the words that were not words, not precisely, flowed through the rage. _Demonkind, twisted through centuries of pain and agony, feed only from pain, the human soul distorted into finding release in physical and mental agony through the memories of life and flesh_.

_What are you doing, Kevin?_ A small voice cried shrilly in the depths of his mind. _Sam said he was almost human. _Stop it!_ Don't turn him _back_!_

Kevin shoved that voice aside, his focus on the cracking of the bones in the hand between the iron arm of the chair and the iron end of the hammer, on the high-pitched scream that issued from the demon's throat, on the blood that spattered over the floor and his shirt as flesh burst open.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Eugene, Oregon<strong>_

Sam shifted incrementally across the water tower's platform, feeling the hot iron under him burning through his jacket, shirt and t-shirt as the sun beat down on both it and his back. He kept the end of the scope shadowed under his cupped hand and stopped at the edge, looking down into the wired-off contamination zone. Higher than the buildings inside, he could see most of the streets, but not all.

"In position," he said softly, his voice picked up and transmitted by the mike around his throat. "Reading me?"

"Affirmative, little brother," Dean's voice came through the earpiece loud and clear, laconic and relaxed.

"I got four demons on this side, just patrolling," Sam murmured, panning the scope to the right. "Army-issue M4A1 rifles, over and under twelve-gauge semi shotgun additions."

"Peachy."

Sam snorted, moving the scope around to the left. "Got another demon, on the rooftop. M40 single shot and a couple of cases of ammo."

There was silence from Dean at that information and Sam wondered what was going through his brother's mind. He knew better than to ask. His brother took his time to fit new information into an existing plan and unless something became untenable, he liked to stick to the original idea.

"Any sign of Abaddon?"

"Negative." Sam adjusted the screw slightly. "Got the hunters, though. Diner on the first cross street coming from our end."

"How many?"

"Four, looks like they're all there."

"Ready to rock'n'roll?"

"You know it," Sam said, refocussing on the demons walking in pairs down the street.

The explosion was deafening and he had to steel himself not to look or move at all, seeing smoke rising in the corner of his eye as he followed the two demons in his scope down the street.

"Two coming straight for you," he said quietly, shifting the scope.

The second blast was from the opposite quadrant of the contaminated zone and Sam felt his brows rising as he watched the apartment building fold up like a house of cards behind the buildings in front of it.

"Impressive."

"You ain't seen nuthin' yet," Dean joked, his soft chuckle drowned out as the third explosion took out a defunct gas station near the other side, the whistling shrieks of air-borne shrapnel making Sam flinch.

"What the –"

"Old tanks must've had some fumes left," Dean's voice sounded in his ear, filled with the delight of a boy letting off firecrackers. Sam rolled his eyes and watched the other three demons split up and head for each of the further locations.

"Alright, they're all on the move, still no Abaddon," he told his brother.

"You're up, get them out, I'll get the two heading for me and cover you."

"Gotcha."

Wriggling backwards across the scalding iron platform, Sam slid off the edge and down the access ladder, the scope in his pocket. He stopped at the wire netting and pulled out a pair of wire-cutters, cutting through the links fast and pushing the wire aside, dropping to a half-crouch as he watched the empty street ahead of him.

"Sonofabitch." Dean's voice muttered in his ear.

"What?"

"Demons disappeared," his brother said tersely. "I'm heading for the diner; I'll be at the back in two. Watch yourself, Sammy."

"You too." Sam ran for the corner of the closest building, stopping at the corner to check the street. The diner was a half-block ahead of him, nearly two from Dean. The Taurus in his hand was loaded with a full clip of the engraved bullets Dean'd made, the binding seal carved into the heads with meticulous precision. One-shot-drop, his brother called them.

Nothing moved on the street and he ran down the sidewalk, in the shadow of the east-facing buildings.


	4. Chapter 4 Into the Black

**Chapter 4 Into the Black**

* * *

><p><em><strong>Eugene, Oregon<strong>_

Dean swore as he looked down the empty street. Behind him, clouds of smoke and dust were still rising lazily into the still air, carrying the pungent scents of shattered brick and decades-old mortar. The demons had been heading straight for him, two from the western side of the closed-off area, the other three from the north. He couldn't see where they'd vanished, just heard the rough slap of their boots stop suddenly and nothing else.

Ambush. The thought was distinct and pervasive. It didn't matter, not really, he thought as he pulled the Colt out, checking the magazine and loading a round into the chamber. No matter how fast they might be, they weren't going to be faster than he could draw and fire and the bullets would hold them, he was sure of that.

_Only an archangel can kill an archdemon_, Henry had said, when they'd been searching the apothecary of the little spiritualist store for things that might work against Abaddon. So far as he knew the arcs were dead or so far out of reach they might've well have been dead. Cas hadn't know how to retrieve the swords of Gabriel or Raphael when he'd asked him some months later. He didn't know where they were.

'_Course, just because that was all Henry knew didn't make it the only way_, he reasoned, dropping below the level of the building windows as he moved along the shadowed side of the street. The tablet was the real authority on Hell and happily they had the prophet to check it out.

He looked around the corner of the building as he reached it, keeping below eye-level. The next block looked as lifeless and empty as the one he'd just come along. The open intersection also looked like a trap. Looking up, he couldn't see any signs of anyone on the rooftops and he swallowed the unpalatable truth that anyone could be up there, without him seeing them from this angle.

On three, he decided, looking out into the empty glare of the sun-filled crossroad again. _One. Two_ –

Accelerating to top speed, Dean shot across the road to the next block like an Olympic runner, head down and lungs heaving, half-hunched with the expectation of a bullet between his shoulder-blades with every stride.

"Sonofabitch!" he gasped when he hit the shadow of the next building without being shot.

"You okay?" Sam's voice filled his ear instantly.

"Yeah, still no sign of those bastards," Dean told him, looking back the way he'd come. The back of his neck was prickling.

"Think they were expecting the light-show?"

"Probably."

"Do we still go?"

"Yeah," Dean said reluctantly, looking across and up the street. He could see the diner's faded awnings from here. Even if they'd planned this far ahead, it was still the only game in town. "I'll be at the back in sixty seconds."

"Right."

Sam heard the smash of glass from inside the building and he shoved his way through the front door, gun barrel raised as he met his brother's eyes across the debris-covered and dust-filled room.

Most of the diner's furniture had remained when the owners had been evacuated and the four bound hunters sat a table to one side of the straight, red Formica counter, tied to the chairs they sat in, gagged and sweating in the hot stillness of the room.

"Irv?" Dean crossed the room and pulled the gag from the older man's mouth. "What's the setup?"

"That red-haired bitch is a demon stronger than I've ever seen, Dean," Irv said, rolling his eyes across as Dean walked past him to the heavily-built black man bound beside him.

"Yeah, we know," Sam said shortly, untying Pete's gag and turning to the young, dark-haired girl in the next chair.

"She grabbed Hush, I saw his body," Irv said, looking over his shoulder. "Tortured the names of a dozen hunters out of him, left him for the coyotes out near the highway."

"She's got more here?" Dean pulled the gag from the man in front of him. "What did she want hunters for? What the hell happened to Abe?"

"I don't know, he was here when they brought us in," Irv said, turning his head to look at the unconscious hunter. "He's been out since then, they must've worked him over pretty hard.

Dean looked at the blood, wet and sticky and dark, over Abe's shirt front. "Yeah."

"I don't think she's got others here, but she was looking for intel on you boys, wanted to know where you were, what you'd been doing –"

"Drink," Dean cut him, holding up a silver flask and tipping it into the hunter's mouth. Irv swallowed the water and nodded. Dean watched him for a moment and cut him free.

"Hold his head, I don't want to drown him with this," Dean told him as he tipped the flask over Abe's partly open mouth.

Behind them, Sam lifted his flask and tipped holy water into the girl's mouth, watching her swallow it, then swivelling around to Pete.

"Don't need any stowaways," Pete grunted as he swallowed the water. "Damn, that tasted good."

Dean and Irv cut Abe free as Sam sliced through the ropes holding the girl and Pete.

"Bottom line," Pete said, looking from Sam to Dean. "We're just bait for you boys."

"Sometimes the fish gets free anyway," Dean commented mildly, pouring a little more water over Abe's face. The man's eyelids fluttered and opened.

"Sometimes," Irv agreed doubtfully. "How you want to do this?"

"Abe, you here, man?" Dean leaned closer to him as Abe's eyes widened suddenly.

"I'm Sam Winchester," Sam said to the girl standing beside Peter. "My brother, Dean."

"Good for you," she said snidely, turning away from him.

"Dean … no," Abe breathed out and began to cough, his breath whistling in his throat as the deep shudders shook his frame. "Trap … no …"

"Yeah, well, we're springing it," Dean said sourly, reaching out to grip Abe's shoulder and pull him from the chair.

"No!"

Abe's hand tightened hard around Dean's arm. Looking down at the hunter as he slumped back in the chair, and pulled aside his shirt, he felt his breath freeze in his chest.

Great, clumsy stitches were all that were holding the hunter's abdomen together, Dean thought disbelievingly as he caught sight of the red-coated metal can that had been shoved inside, nestled between Abe's organs.

"Bomb?" He looked at Abe, his face stone-cold. The hunter nodded miserably, his head dropping to his shoulder as his strength began to ebb.

"Everyone out," Irv snapped, grabbing Pete and hustling him toward the door. "NOW!"

"Abe –" Dean hesitated, looking down at the man.

"Go." The command was barely a breath.

Sam hesitated, waiting for Dean, exhaling sharply as his brother turned away and gestured to the door.

* * *

><p>They made it across the street before the explosive went off, blowing out the windows and walls and bringing down the roof of the diner, throwing themselves flat to the ground as the air was filled with whining debris and shrapnel. Sam looked up as Traci fell in front of him, her grunt of pain simultaneous with the way her hands clutched at her side. Pete rolled sharply as a piece of metal embedded itself in the back of his thigh, his eyes closing.<p>

Through the smoke, Dean saw the demons striding toward them and swore under his breath, pushing himself to his knees and grabbing Sam's shoulder, going to Pete and dragging him up as Sam lifted Traci upright and pushed her ahead of him.

"Bar," Dean said to Irv tersely, waving a hand to the corner building at the end of the street. "We've got everything we need."

"Good," Irv said, looking behind them. "'Cause we got another three coming from t'other direction!"

"RUN!"

There was fuck-all cover bar the shadows on the western side of the street as they ran for the building, and Dean was all too-aware when the guns started chattering behind them, dust exploding from the street and the brick walls next to them, that the demons weren't aiming to kill, just to drive them in a certain direction.

Sam swerved into the bar, hitting the door with his shoulder and stumbling into the gloomy interior while Pete shoved Traci through in front of him and followed them in.

"They weren't aiming for us," Irv said, turning to look at Dean.

"No," Dean agreed, pushing the door shut and ramming the bolts at the top and bottom home. He turned and gestured to the bags sitting next to the counter. "Gear up."

"Stay or go?" Sam asked him, pulling a bottle of holy water from the counter and refilling his flask. Dean checked the clip in his gun and replaced it, thinking about that.

"This is Abaddon's party and we're the favours," he said in a low voice to his brother. "She's found them trained soldiers and armed them with assault rifles. We gotta get ahead of her."

"No argument," Sam said, glancing at Irv who was dressing the shrapnel wound on Traci's side. The sharp metal shard lay on the table next to her. "She booby-trapped Abe."

"Yeah, that one I'll take out in trade," Dean said, mostly to himself. "I want you to take these guys upstairs. Get across the roofs as far as you can."

"While you …?"

"We got one bomb, Sammy," Dean said, looking at him. "I'll try and get 'em all to come in but that'll take them out without anyone else getting capped."

Sam looked at him carefully, trying to work out if Dean's plan was recklessly careless of himself or just the best shot they had. An idea occurred to him.

"I gotta better idea," he said, taking his phone out.

* * *

><p>"COME AND GET IT, YOU DICKS!"<p>

Dean watched the three demons standing by the front door of the bar from the rooftop four buildings away, eyes narrowed as they barrelled through the doorway together. The flash was brief but eye-searingly bright and there was no further movement from the building.

"Alright," he said, one side of his mouth lifting slightly as he inched his way back from the parapet and ran doubled-over for the access door. Three down, three to go.

"Worked?"

He nodded to Sam and looked at Irv. "Three down. Irv, you and me are on point, Sam you're on rear. Watch the roofs, there was a sniper up there when we came in and he'll probably head high again with their numbers reduced. And watch the fuck out for the hot red-head."

"The hell's the deal with her?" Irv looked at them curiously. "I tried everything on her when she came at me and nothin' worked!"

"She's a Knight of Hell," Dean said, rubbing his hand distractedly over his jaw. "Old-time fallen angel, went into the pit with Lucifer. Nothing we've found so far does much more than keep her in place. Word of advice? You see her, don't fight, just run."

"Got _that_," the hunter grunted, picking up his shotgun and the small green gear bag.

"How's the side?" Sam asked Traci, looking at the seepage from the dressing Irv had put on.

"Fine," she snapped at him, getting to her feet, the carbine swinging on its strap from her shoulder.

Sam frowned at the acidity of her tone and followed them down. He'd just met the girl; he didn't think he could've done anything to her yet to account for the unconcealed and barely reined-in hostility he could feel coming off her in waves.

* * *

><p>When they reached the street level, Dean stopped, looking out from the deep shadows of the doorway's alcove. The street was empty, dust swirling along the road between the buildings and the hard, flat light picking out every detail of the derelict store fronts and apartments.<p>

The back of his neck was prickling like a sonofabitch and it was too damned empty, too damned quiet. He backed up, turning in the hallway and looking past the hunters behind him to the back entrance.

"Sam, take Pete and Traci out the front once you've heard us go out the back," he told his brother, heading for the back. He didn't think that the front would be any safer than the back but he and Irv could both run and shoot at the same time, and he thought they had a slight chance of pulling the attention of whoever was watching the street if they made enough noise going through the alley. He swung the rifle over his shoulder by the strap and unzipped the end of the bag he carried as he strode fast down the hall, finding the grenades by feel and pulling out three. Even super-soldier demons weren't quite so fast without limbs.

* * *

><p>It should've worked fine, Sam thought as he heard his brother's grenades explode in the alley and the rattling fusillade of gunfire echoing between the buildings. He shot out of the front door, Pete and Traci tight on his heels and nothing happened, they were almost two blocks down when the demons came from both sides and he made the last-minute decision to dive into the drugstore, his face screwing up as he heard Pete's scream over the thundering hail of bullets that hit the building.<p>

* * *

><p>Dean lobbed the first grenade into the mouth of the alley and turned away as it exploded two or three feet from the ground, sending out a lethal circle of engraved iron shrapnel. The demon was caught out in the open and he saw it go down, a look of surprise on its face as it realised it couldn't move, its meatsuit bleeding out from the dozens of ragged and bloody holes torn out of its flesh.<p>

He and Irv came out of the doorway, clinging to the side of the building and reaching the corner.

Dean turned to look at Irv. "You rea–?"

The words died in his throat as he watched the hunter behind him crumple to the ground, the single round black hole in his forehead just beginning to glint red.

He looked up and saw the sniper on the rooftop, and his rifle was in his hands and aimed before he'd fully registered the death of the man at his feet. The gun was on single shot and the first engraved bullet hit the demon just behind and under the ear, a one-in-a-million shot that took out the meatsuit's nervous system at the same time as it trapped the demon inside its skull.

"Nice shooting, Tex."

There was no mistaking the throaty voice behind him and turning and firing was a single fluid motion, nerve, muscle and brain working in perfected harmony. The bullets hit the archdemon in a tight group in the centre of her chest, knocking her backward a little more with each impact. She stopped moving when he stopped firing and pushed her hair back from her face, smiling brightly at him. Then she was on him, the rifle wrenched from his hands, the strap burning a fierce line across the skin of his neck as it tore free and clattered a few yards away on the cracked asphalt.

"Dean, you always used to go for the head-shot!" Abaddon exclaimed girlishly, taking two long strides as he reached for his automatic. "Ah-ah-ah!"

The handgun glowed red-hot in his hand and he dropped it, ducking under her first swing, feeling the breeze of it brush through his hair.

"Alone at last," she said, turning with him, all trace of femininity gone in the hungry, reptilian look she gave him.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

Kevin let the hammer drop to the floor, the heavily weighted head keeping it upright, watching the creature in front of him gasp and wheeze, blood flowing and pooling on the floor beneath the chair.

Crowley lifted his head slowly. The right cheekbone of the New York publisher had been pulverised, the eye pushed deep and the eyelid draped loosely over the socket. Along the curve of the skull, four fractures were bleeding freely, the loose flaps of skin still holding the thick, dark hair attached. Crowley's hands were broken, fingers flattened out, the nails split and torn off, knuckles gleaming white through the shreds of skin that no longer covered them. The left knee was still swelling, patella splintered and the trousers, expensive Italian silk, were ripped and tattered over the mottled flesh that kept pressing against the holes.

"All … that … poison … lanced … out … now … Kev?" he asked the prophet, the words coming out a little mushily through the gap of missing teeth in the right side of his mouth.

"Not even close," Kevin said, staring down at him. He felt sick, sick and poisoned and unable to see how he could possibly look at anyone or anything again without seeing this image, this picture of what he'd done floating over everything like a noisome ghost.

Crowley tipped his head back, feeling the detritus in his mouth gather. He turned his head and spat it out, blood and bone and broken tooth fragments, his tongue running around the changed interior of his mouth carefully.

"I want to talk."

"No."

"I'm going to make this simple, Kevin," Crowley said, looking up at him. "You let me go, I'll give you back your mother."

"My mother … is dead," Kevin said quietly. It had taken a long time to admit to that and longer to be able to think it without being consumed by shame and guilt and a rush of rage so deep it would keep him shaking for hours.

Crowley pursed his lips, shaking his head slightly. "When have you ever known me to let anyone off that easy, Kev?" he asked. "Or to give up a card that I might need to play, later on in the day?"

He saw the first tiny flicker of doubt he'd brought into being fanned, just a little and considered how to turn it from a trembling flame into an inferno.

"Do you think that Sam and Dean care about her?" he asked, watching Kevin's face. The twitch at the corner of the boy's eye told him everything he needed to know. Nothing had changed since Dean had held a knife to Linda Tran's throat in an attempt to murder him. "Do you think … they care about _you_?"

"They have you reading the angel tablet, looking for a way to reverse things in Heaven, reading the demon tablet, trying to get on top of Abaddon … how d'you fancy spending your life here, in the stacks of books and the smell of old paper, reading and translating until they don't need you anymore?"

Kevin's gaze cut away and Crowley sighed. "You're as much a prisoner of the Winchesters as I am, matey."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Eugene, Oregon<strong>_

The demon facing him was six inches shorter and maybe fifty pounds heavier, Sam thought. It'd hit him when he'd turned back to shut the door behind them, slamming that greater weight and momentum into his ribs and sending him flying back through the metal shelving, his gun pulled from his hand and lying in several pieces over the dust-covered hardwood boards.

Ruby's knife glinted in the mote-laden sunlight that striped the room through the slatted blinds. It was, Sam considered, the only reason the demon hadn't charged him again, that viciously serrated blade with its ancient engravings.

The demon stopped moving, and Sam stopped as well. When it turned and launched itself across the floor toward the girl under the table, he was frozen in shock for a microsecond, it was Traci's rising scream that propelled him across the room after it. The demon had broken her arm and its fingers were digging into her stomach when Sam swung the knife, feeling it punch into muscle and skid off the bone underneath.

Whipping around, it flung him off, the knife wound glowing and roiling red and gold, casting an oily light over the side of the demon's face as it scrambled across the knocked-over furniture Sam was scattering behind him. The demon, unlike the others he'd faced, was trained and much faster, he had time to think before it was there, on top of him, a protruding knuckle spearing into his solar plexus and forcing out every bit of air he'd had in his lungs, hitting the cluster of nerves behind the muscles and shocking his diaphragm into stopping completely.

Paralysed by the accurate blow, Sam watched helplessly as Ruby's knife toppled from his loosened grip, the demon kicking it aside with a wolfish grin.

"Sammy Winchester," it said, dropping to its knees beside him and leaning close to his face. "Haven't seen you for a while. Word was you disappeared, like your brother."

Sam stared past the blunt-featured face to Traci as he struggled to force his frozen muscles to move – lift – do _anything_ – before he suffocated.

"Saviour. Destroyer. Soulless as a demon," the demon continued, its breath hot against the side of his jaw and ear. "Just a few drops of my blood and we could start the whole carnival ride again, couldn't we?"

Fear sparked along his nerves, fear and a loathing so deep it felt hot and thick, filling him up.

_NO!_ He couldn't be turned now. The blood was burned out.

He was fucking _NORMAL!_

"We've all been dying to know, Sam Winchester … did the trials burn all of Azazel's blood from your veins? Or is there some little, tiny remnant remaining, something that made you choose life over ending all possibility of our rising forever? Abaddon thinks that you didn't purify it all."

The demon pulled a long, slim-bladed knife from its belt, lifting it up and running its tongue along the edge. Sam stared at the blood that welled over its lip, dripping from the cut.

"A few drops, Sam, and we'll know for sure … won't we?"

* * *

><p>Pete opened his eyes, a little surprised that he was still alive. He could hear his pulse, erratic and thready one minute, stronger, then weaker and realised slowly that it wouldn't last much longer. The Winchester's gear bag was a few feet from him and he looked at it for several minutes from the corner of his eye as he tested his body. His legs wouldn't work, that'd been apparent straight away, but he still had some control over his arms and he thought he'd last long enough to get to someone who might need him.<p>

The thought flickered in and out of the crushing pain. Someone needed him, him and one of them bottles of oil the boys had brought. He wasn't sure he knew where the thought came from, but he didn't care overly about that. It was something to do.

It took two goes and another minute to roll from his back to his front and he found that his heart steadied a lot once he'd done it. The bag was zipped shut. He reached out an arm and dug his fingers down against the asphalt and pulled himself closer. Sweat beaded across his brow and he hoped that whoever it was who needed him didn't need him in a real hurry.

* * *

><p>Abaddon's smile widened as she lifted her close-fitting shirt up and he saw the slugs embedded in the vest beneath.<p>

"Oh yeah, twenty-first century has an answer for everything, even magic bullets!" she laughed at his expression. "Should've tried at least one head shot, sweetheart, I'm fast, but there's always a chance I won't be that fast."

"Well, let's see?" Dean said, burying his feelings and backing up, his peripheral vision acute as he picked up the details of the ground around him, the debris and trips and traps he needed to be aware of. His hand slid under his jacket and closed around the one-handed grip of the sword there, and he pulled it out, spinning it casually through his fingers, feeling the play of muscle and tendon loosen the tension that had gripped him.

She _was_ fast, he knew. Maybe as much as fifteen percent faster than he was. And strong. And … of course, a demon. He overruled the small voice that said that was too many advantages lined up against him, and he thought instead about disadvantages, about sneakiness and an entire lifetime of not playing by the rules.

Too much confidence, too full of herself, not admitting to mistakes made. His first impression was still holding. She'd been defeated not just once but twice now, she could be again, but he had the feeling she hadn't really absorbed the lesson, the last two times.

He swung wide, offering her an opportunity, and she struck, blindingly fast, her hand almost closing around his wrist as he shifted his weight back and to the other side, pulling free and dragging her after him at the same time, the sword dropping smoothly from his right hand to his left and rising sharply under her, the tip scoring over her abdomen and ribcage and punching through her upper arm as she suddenly registered her danger and pulled frantically away and back from him.

_Score_, he thought, half-surprised at the success of the move. Light had poured out of her wounds which were already sealing slowly, the blood steaming as they appeared to cauterise themselves from the inside. He'd had a fraction of a second's glimpse of her eyes when the angel sword had touched her and he'd seen the fear in them then, seen that she hadn't even thought of him being able to touch her, let alone get her off balance, unprepared, and do some damage.

"Lucky," Abaddon said, flexing her shoulder and closing her fist as she tested the arm he'd hit.

"In my experience, there's no such thing as luck," Dean said, hiding the delight that fizzed in him from finally being able to use the friggin' line in the right – and this was _so_ right – context.

"Really? I thought that luck was the main reason you're still alive?"

He ignored the sally, seeing her jawline tense, and waited for the attack, moving backwards lightly across the street, checking off the objects that lay around them, the positions of which he'd noted when he's scanned the street on seeing her.

She came as expected, straight for him and he drifted to one side, the sword point lifting and dragging her gaze with it. She stumbled as her foot landed on the rolling curves of the broken bottles that she hadn't noticed lying in the street. He lunged in, watching her hips for direction as she struggled to find a way back with her weight already over her back foot and no place to go, anticipating the only other move available, sideways and to her dominant hand as well. Left. The sword sliced through the tight black pants and the muscle underneath easily, lighting his face in white and gold and she threw back her head and screamed at him. He'd expected her to try and stay upright but she gave it up, falling backwards and dragging the sword blade, trapped in the tense muscle of her thigh, and him with her, her uninjured leg scything low and hard and hitting him in the side of the head with the edge of her boot.

Holding onto the sword risked breaking a wrist and Dean let go, rolling fast to the side, hearing the dull clang of the angel weapon on the dirt-covered asphalt behind him, thinking he was going to get clear, but he wasn't quite fast enough. Her grip closed around his wrist and he was yanked back as Abaddon twisted his arm back and high, wrist and elbow locking, the shoulder straining to stay in its socket, tendons stretching and stretching, agonisingly close to snapping. The deep grunt he gave made her laugh as she jerked him onto his knees on the fulcrum of his twisted arm, kneeling behind him and pushing the ball of the joint to the very edge of the cup of bone.

"You really have improved," she said, leaning close enough that he could feel the hard vest adding pressure to the wall of misery that had been his shoulder joint. "I have to say, even after the efforts you made to save poor old Henry, I didn't really expect you to come, you know. A bunch of humans you hardly know?"

"What do you want?" Dean ground out.

"I want Crowley," she said, easing the pressure slightly on the shoulder as she looked down at him in surprise. "A simple exchange."

"Exchange," Dean repeated. "And I get?"

"To die quickly," Abaddon told him bluntly. "Quick, clean, you won't feel a thing."

"And if I tell you to get bent?"

"Oh … well," she said, looking at him consideringly, the tip of her tongue slipping along her full lower lip. "I understand that you've been something of an exception in your circle. The only one who's never been possessed."

"Clean living," Dean said through his teeth as she increased the pressure on his arm and he couldn't help but tilt toward the shoulder, trying to find some relief from the excruciating agony that was clouding the edges of his vision, sucking him toward unconsciousness.

Abaddon smiled, the wide, cat-green eyes darkening slightly as she leaned closer to him. "Let me explain this to you simply, Dean, in small words, so you'll understand the first time." Her right hand stroked down his cheek and along his neck, curling around to close tightly in his hair. She pulled his head back, forcing him to look up at her.

"You give me Crowley, or I'll peel off this no-demons-allowed tattoo and I'll take you on 'The Exorcist' tour and make you watch – and feel – everything," she paused, watching him closely. "It'll be you and me, and you think what you did in Hell was bad? Up here, it's _so_ much worse … up here … there _are_ innocents, Dean. You've got a good imagination, I'm sure you can figure out where we'll go and what we'll do and how long it'll take before you want to die so badly that you'll do anything for it."

He stared up at her, forcing himself to keep the fear that was hammering at him tightly held down, not letting it show in his face or his eyes. He knew what she would do. And he knew what it would do to him.

* * *

><p>Sam's blood was normal, the angel thought, but his mind was not and the demon's blood could still undo all that the man had suffered through if he didn't understand that the danger had indeed gone.<p>

The choice was simple and he wrapped himself around the soul he was tending, shutting out the senses and everything in the vessel that was uniquely _Sam_.

He could no longer reach out to touch Heaven. The only soul he could touch was the one in his care and it was limited in its power, by the flesh and blood of the vessel that contained it. Nonetheless, Ezekiel drew on the power he had. The soul had a connection of its own, and that connection was infinite and inextinguishable, both a power sink and a beacon. Light filled the cells of the vessel as he thrust the demon aside, getting to his feet and filling the room with a silent symphony, drawn from and played through Sam's soul. The demon vanished as the light seared into it, burning away first the vessel then the charred black smoke it contained, the shadows of broken and burned wings stretched out along the wall behind the unconscious girl.

* * *

><p>Pete looked up and sighed very softly. That was who he needed to help. The red-haired demon's back was to him, and even at this distance he could read the agony in the oldest Winchester's twisted body. The bottle he'd dragged with him suddenly felt light and he worried that he'd broken it somehow, lost the heavy contents on the way. It sloshed reassuringly as he lifted it closer and he dug a hand into his pocket, fingers pulling out the handkerchief he carried.<p>

Molotovs were easiest, he thought, breaking the seal on the bottle and prising the stopper free. A bottle of something flammable, a fuse, a light and a good arm and aim and it was all done and dusted.

The cloth fed into the neck of the bottle and he pulled a little out again when he felt the oil sliding against his fingers. One good lob. The old Zippo he carried had been faithful on a million salt'n'burns and had never let him down. He felt certain it wouldn't today either.

The oil-soaked cotton lit immediately, the flame straight as the breeze died. Turning his head stiffly, Pete calculated the distance and trajectory and lifted the bottle, feeling the weight. Couldn't use anything other than the one arm. It would have to be right. Dean needed him.

He gripped the bottle by the base and threw.

* * *

><p>Abaddon's nails drove into his skin, encircling the tattoo. Dean felt her breath brush over his mouth as she leaned closer, kissing distance, the threat in her smile implicit.<p>

"Well, Dean, what'll it be?"

He saw the bottle arc up gently against the faded sky behind the demon and fall toward them and the explosive crash of the ceramic container hitting the road next to Abaddon was simultaneous with the blinding blast of light from a storefront on the opposite side of the road a half-block down.

Abaddon shrieked as holy fire spattered over her and the light pierced her at the same time. He felt her grip loosen as she twisted away from both, vanishing in the glare, and he turned his head away, eyes screwed shut. A moment later, the light had gone, but the flickering of the burning oil remained and he looked at it, then down the street, seeing Pete's body lying on the road.

Gone. For a moment, as he replayed the last few seconds in his memory, he wondered at the timing, then shut his thoughts away, the white fire in his shoulder demanding that he do something about it before he lost the slight grip on consciousness he still had.

Getting to his feet carefully, the displaced joint still teetering on the edge of the socket, he staggered to the doorway of the closest building, jaw muscle twitching at the thought of what he needed to do next. The door's architrave protruded from the edge of the brick wall three inches. More than enough to tip the anterior displacement back into place, he thought with a resigned inward sigh.

He swung his shoulder into the doorway and the joint popped back into the socket. The sharp cry stayed mostly in his throat and he swallowed hard against it, leaning against the doorway as the tendons were released from the fiery pain of being stretched out too long, muscle sagging in relief at being allowed to contract again. He turned, letting himself slump against the wall and dragged in a deep breath, the pain receding, leaving only a memory of agony in the torn muscle fibres.

The light blast had come from the drugstore, he thought tiredly, and there was only one angel he could think of who would be there and blasting demons. Opening and closing his hand a couple of times, he pushed himself off the door frame, walking unsteadily down the street until he came to Pete.

The older hunter was lying on his side and from the waist down, soaked in blood. Dropping to one knee, Dean touched his fingers to the man's carotid, not surprised that he couldn't feel a pulse. Had Pete thrown the Molotov? He had to have, he thought, his gaze lifting and searching along the street in both direction. He could make out the blood trail the hunter had left, a twisting red smear that led down the block. Could see the holes that patterned Pete's clothes. How the hell had he managed to drag himself all the way here –? It wasn't a question that he was going to get an answer for and he pushed the thought aside, leaning over and closing Pete's eyes. Getting back on his feet, he started for the drugstore, accelerating as he crossed the street. He shoved at the door, stepping around it as swung from one hinge.

The drugstore was filled with broken tables and chairs and Dean noted the two meatsuits lying on the floor. Sam was standing by the counter. _Ezekiel_ was standing by the counter, Dean corrected himself, seeing the un-Sam expression on his brother's face.

"What happened?" he asked the angel, his gaze dropping uncomfortably to the floor as eyes that were … but weren't … his brother's turned to him.

"The demon was attempting to get your brother to drink its blood," Ezekiel replied, his voice almost expressionless.

"What?" Dean stared at him. "But – that – that's over, isn't it? It can't work now?"

"Physically, biologically, no, it cannot," Ezekiel agreed, inclining his head. "Sam's fear, however, meant it could have distorted his mind. He is unsure yet that he was cleansed."

"Chri – fuck, what a mess," Dean snapped, turning away and seeing the girl lying under the table on the other side of the room. "She dead?"

"Injured," the angel told him.

Muttering under his breath, Dean crossed to her in a few long, harried strides and knocked the table from over her, brows drawing together as he looked down at the long cut on the side of her face, the wrong bend in her arm and the sticky red mess over her abdomen. He lifted her out and turned back to Ezekiel.

"Can you do something about it?"

"Yes." Ezekiel walked to him, closing his eyes and setting Sam's hand over her forehead. "Her will to live is very strong."

Real healing would be too hard to explain, Dean suddenly realised, his fingers closing around his brother's arm. "Not all the way, just to the point where she won't die from it."

Ezekiel nodded.

Light outlined his brother's fingers, pulsing and settling into the skin of the young woman. The cut on her face pulled closer together but didn't disappear. Dean slid his arms around her, picking her up and carrying her to a still-standing table. He set her down and pulled aside the lower half of her shirt, seeing the puncture wounds across her skin stop bleeding but holes remained open. Her arm straightened, the discolouration of the bruising remaining.

"You can't touch Heaven," he said, looking at Sam.

"No."

"How – how're you doing this?" He gestured wildly around the room. "How'd you do _this_?"

"Sam's soul has sufficient power for many things, provided they are not of a long duration or great requirement." The angel looked down at the girl's face.

"You're pulling power from Sam's soul?" Dean asked in astonishment. "Doesn't that – won't that slow down his healing?"

"No, the soul's power is renewed constantly," Ezekiel said, looking back at him. "As you can get up each morning and do what you must do, it too is replenished."

"Great, okay, fine."

"That power is all that is available to me, Dean," the angel said, sensing the man's ambivalence about it. "I thought it was best I protect your brother, that is what you requested of me."

"Yeah," Dean said, his shoulders slumping in defeat. "Yeah, that's what I want you to do."

He looked back at the angel. "What's going on with Sam now?"

"He is … unaware," the angel told him. "He remembers nothing."

"Great." Turning away, Dean thought about what the hell he was going to say about this. "We need to burn these bodies."

"I agree."

* * *

><p>Traci looked mutinously at Dean as she knelt beside Sam. "I think he's coming to."<p>

Looking around, he ignored the expression on her face and nodded. "Good."

He gestured at the two bags sitting on the counter. "Chuck those in the car, we'll be right behind you."

She got up and picked up the first bag without a word, going out of the drugstore to where Dean had parked the car. He'd dressed the cut and the holes in her abdomen, had taped her arm and rigged a sling for it. She'd winced at the pain when she'd woken, and he'd told her she'd been lucky, handing her a couple of painkillers to dry-swallow. Whatever she'd remembered of the attack, she didn't seem to be questioning anything.

"What the hell happened?" Sam pushed himself back against the wall and rolled to his knees as Dean reached out and caught his wrist.

"Got me," Dean said, his fingers tightening around his brother's arm for a second then letting him go. "Came in and there's two dead meatsuits, Traci out for the count under a table and you lying up against that wall. I just finished the pyre for Pete and Irv, been humping dead bodies for the last two hours – on my own."

Sam's questions died in his throat as he looked at his brother. "Pete was gunned down out the front as we got in, but Irv bought it too?"

"Abaddon's sniper," Dean said shortly. "You alright?"

"Yeah, uh," Sam said uncertainly, feeling the lump on the back of his head. "I must have gotten knocked out, somehow."

"Well, you knifed the demons first, so I'm gonna forgive you that one." Dean shrugged and waved his hand at the door as he picked up the second gear bag from the counter. "Let's go."

"Is Traci alright?" Sam asked, following him slowly. "The demon was trying to gut her …"

"Couldn't have gotten too deep," Dean said over his shoulder. "She's gonna have some new scars, that's about it."

The image in Sam's mind, the demon's hand disappearing into her stomach, became fuzzy and faded and he shook his head a little, wondering how hard he'd hit it as he pulled the door closed behind him. Sitting in the backseat of the black car, Traci looked the other way as he got into the passenger front.

"What happened to Abaddon?" he asked Dean as the engine rumbled to life.

"Disappeared when Pete threw a holy oil Molotov at her," Dean told him, driving slowly down the street and turning at the end.

"Pete was dead, Dean," Sam said, frowning. "He got caught in the crossfire between the two demons who came after us."

"Couldn't've been all the way dead, Sammy," Dean contradicted him. "Drag marks from the drugstore to where I was and one of our own bottles."

"Huh."

"Yeah." Dean hoped he wasn't going to think that one over too much. He couldn't work out how the hunter had managed it either. Luck, Abaddon had said. Or help. He wasn't sure which he preferred to believe in.

"Where are we going?" Traci asked from the backseat.

"Missoula." He looked into the rearview mirror at her. "Friends there who can look after you while you heal up and teach you something about hunting."

"I know about hunting," she said frigidly to the back of his head.

"Not enough," he said, his tone suggesting that the argument was over. "You keep hunting alone and you'll be dead before you get to twenty-one."

She turned her head and Sam saw her stare out the window, her mouth compressed to a tight, thin line. He looked back at his brother, seeing the faint tension in the fingers that held the wheel, in the line from Dean's shoulder to jaw. Another fun trip, he thought tiredly.

* * *

><p><em><strong>I-90 E, Washington<strong>_

_I'm goin' to Rosedale, _

_Take my rider by side  
><em>

The music poured softly from the speakers, the beat in time with the engine, with the noise of the tyres as the car sped along the road. Dean looked through the windshield, his thumbs tapping lightly against the wheel, his world reduced to the long reach of the headlights and the lines they travelled between.

_Anybody argue with me man, _

_I'll keep them satisfied  
><em>

Sam was in the back, mostly stretched out, although the seat wasn't quite long enough for his brother. Leaning into the corner between the door and the end of the front seat, Traci sat beside him, asleep as well, he thought.

_Well, see my baby, tell her, _

_Tell her the shape I'm in  
>Ain't had no lovin', Lord, <em>

_Since you know when_

"My family was killed six years ago. Demon attack."

He started a little, flicking a fast sideways glance at Traci. She wasn't looking at him, her gaze fixed to the road unrolling ahead of them. He had the feeling that asking questions would only derail whatever it was she needed to get out, and he looked back at the road, waiting.

_She's a good rider  
>She's my kind-hearted lady <em>

"My dad was a hunter," she added, a few minutes later. "At the time, we didn't know what was happening. It wasn't until I met Irv and a couple of other hunters that I found out that it happened because the devil got out of his cage."

Feeling his heart sink, Dean slid another look at her. She couldn't've been more than nineteen, twenty at the most, he thought. Thirteen or fourteen maybe, back then.

"There were four demons."

_She's gotta mortgage on my body, got a lien on my soul _

He heard her breath rasp in her throat.

"The house wasn't protected," she continued after another minute of silence. "He kept meaning to do it. He talked to Bobby Singer about the traps and the wards. You know him?"

Turning her head, she looked at him and he could feel her gaze on the side of his face, like a brand. The song ended and the silence in the car was deafening. He nodded.

"I met a couple of hunters in Missouri," she said, her mouth curling up derisively. "Roy Milton, and Walt Tennant. You know them?"

He looked at her. "Yeah, we know them."

"Told me Sam Winchester let the devil loose," she said, her voice hardening slightly as the steely riff of the next song began. "They said the gates were being opened because of that."

_Bright light almost blinding, black night still there shining,  
>I can't stop, keep on climbing, looking for what I knew. <em>

Dean sucked in a breath as he heard his brother shift in the backseat behind him. "You know, for the record, Sam's not the only guy in the world who thought he was doing the right thing, and watched it all turn to crap."

"Irv told me he put the devil back in the cage," she said. "That true?"

"Yeah, it is."

"How'd he get out?"

"That's a long story," Dean hedged, glancing at her again. "How'd you survive?"

"That's a long story," she said, her tone matching his.

"You've been hunting these last six years?"

"More or less," she admitted.

_Met a man on the roadside crying, without a friend, there's no denying,  
>You're incomplete, they'll be no finding looking for what you knew. <em>

"Then you should know that shit happens, to good people, and there's no way of knowing beforehand what's coming at you," he said. "People, even hunters, get caught in things so big they don't know what the hell's going on and there's no blueprint or game plan to tell you that a choice you make is going to turn into something that you'll regret the rest of your life."

"You were there?"

"Yeah."

"Were you a part of it?"

He heard the curiosity in her voice, underlaid by something else, something powerful and needing, and he closed his eyes briefly.

"Everyone was a part of it," he said slowly. "There were two, at least, probably more archangels changing things around – changing peoples' whole lives – to make sure that Lucifer got out."

_So anytime somebody needs you, don't let them down, although it grieves you,  
>Some day you'll need someone like they do, looking for what you knew.<em>

He blinked as the lyrics filled the space in the conversation, uncertain if that message was aimed at him or if it was just a random coincidence _(no such thing as coincidence in this life)_.

"This is what we do, what you have to do, if you're a hunter," he said. "You risk everything you wanted or you lose everything you wanted because that's the job. It's not about revenge, Traci, you'll never kill enough to make up for what happened. It's not finding someone or something to blame for what happened to you. It's about making a decision to do something about it – so it doesn't happen to anyone else – or giving up and living like everyone else. You're gunna burn out if you only rely on your anger."

Behind him, Sam shifted again, and he wondered briefly how long it would take his brother to raise that with him, when they were back on their own.

_Mmm, I'm telling you now, The greatest thing you ever can do now,  
>Is trade a smile with someone who's blue now, It's very easy just...<em>

The songs played on as she turned away, leaning against the glass of the passenger window.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Missoula, Montana<strong>_

Bumping over the rutted gravel road, Dean saw the house emerge from behind a long screen of trees and let out his breath in unconscious relief that they were there, that he could hand off the broken girl to someone else. _Her will to live is very strong_, the angel had said. It might keep her going, he thought uneasily, but until she got what'd happened to her family straight in her head, she'd still die young, doing what she was doing.

The white-painted frame farmhouse was nestled in a flattish hollow, outbuildings to one side and fields on the other, and he pulled up in front of the porch, the silence of the place filling the car when he turned off the engine.

They got out, stretching after the long drive, three doors squeaking and clunking in unison and Dean saw Sam's smile as he looked up to the front door, turning and seeing Hannah's sister walking down the steps toward them. Like Hannah, Alyssa's mother's genes had dominated and glossy black hair, long and loose, smooth olive-toned skin and a generously curved figure were the outstanding features of both sisters.

"I was wondering if you'd make it," she said, reaching up to hug Sam as he went to meet her. Dean saw Traci's expression change at the obvious warmth in the greeting, the girl watching for a long moment then looking away.

"Long friggin' drive from Oregon," Dean said acerbically. "Traci, this is Alyssa."

"Ma'am," the young woman said, nodding to her from the other side of the car.

"Ma'am?!" Alyssa glanced from the girl to Dean, brows rising in mock horror. "What am I? Sixty now?" She stepped toward the girl and held out her hands to her. "You're Jonah's girl, aren't you, Traci? I was very sorry to hear of your loss."

Traci looked up in surprise, her face younger and prettier without the habitual mistrust in it, Dean noted, and she let the woman take her hands and hold them. "Yeah."

Alyssa smiled at the girl's unspoken question. "Oh, we know most people in the life, one way or another. I always thought your mother was one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen. You look very much like her"

Dean watched the girl duck her head suddenly, wondering if it was the compliment or that someone else knew her family that had brought the shine to her eyes.

"Come on in, Andreas will be back in a couple of hours. You'll stay long enough to eat, of course," Alyssa said briskly, wrapping an arm around Traci and turning to look at the brothers. "Sashi brought in another load of holy oil last week, if you need any replacements. We've had fourteen confirmed reports of angel sightings, from the border down to Texas so far, but Colin is trying to get in touch with his family in Dublin to see if they can find out the situation in Europe as well."

Dean followed them as Alyssa and Traci went back up the porch steps, stopping and looking back as he realised that Sam wasn't behind him.

"What?"

"Just this," Sam said, turning slowly on his heel as he looked around the yard, flowers blooming haphazardly in the garden beds, a neat line of different vehicles parked in the shadows of the biggest shed on the other side of the driveway. "I mean, look at it, Dean."

Fifteen hours of driving straight through had left him feeling disconnected from almost everything, but he caught Sam's meaning after a moment. "They're not hunters, Sam."

"They may as well be, and Andreas was," Sam countered, walking past him up the steps.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

The locking rings thunked heavily as the tenons withdrew and Dean pushed open the door of the bunker, one arm wrapped around a bucket of fried chicken, the other rubbing tiredly over his eyes.

"I'm just sayin', from home-cooked, fresh-grown food, you had to go to this?" Sam said from behind him, closing the door and looking over his shoulder as the locks re-engaged.

"It's fast, it's food and I'm tired," Dean said, turning for the staircase. "Kevin? We got dinner here."

"If we'd left the key with him, he could've re-supplied himself," Sam muttered.

"We've got one key and it stays with us," Dean countered shortly, looking around the situation as he hit the bottom of the stairs. "Kevin?"

The library was empty, the entire place … _felt_ … empty. Dean turned to look at Sam, the same thought in both their minds.

Dropping the bucket and bag on the table, Dean shot through the library and down the hall at the rear, taking the stairs three and four at a time as he descended to the file storage level. He could hear Sam's footfalls behind him.

_No. No … no … no–no-no-no!_

He saw the lights on in the room and slammed into the mostly-closed door with his shoulder, his chest compressing when he realised the shelving that formed the door to the dungeon was open as well.

_FUCK IT, NO!_

In the centre of the room, Crowley lifted his head, looking at them from slitted eyes, one of them hidden within the mass of swollen flesh surrounding it. Dean's gaze skittered over him, registering the injuries, automatically recognising how they were inflicted, his eyes flicking to the open cupboard on the side of the room and seeing the dark stains on the iron head of the small sledge.

"Who worked you over?" he asked the demon tersely.

"Martin Hayward," Crowley said indistinctly. "And Brandon Favours."

Dean's brows rose fractionally as he looked at his brother. Sam's forehead wrinkled up. "They did this to you?"

Crowley rolled his eyes, an effect lost since his eyes could hardly be seen. "No. They're demons," he clarified sardonically, making an effort to speak more clearly. "You asked for names, I'm giving you names."

"Wow," Dean said, shaking his head as he looked at the demon. "You break easy."

"Please." Crowley gave him a pained look. "Your little plan to have me stew in my own … delicious … juices … Pathetic." He drew in a breath. "You want intel. Well, I want things too."

Dean looked at him consideringly. How much more would Crowley give if he found out that Abaddon had made hunting him down and killing him the top of her To Do list? Something for another day, he thought, feeling Sam's gaze flicker over to him, knowing his brother was thinking the same thing.

Crowley exhaled. "Maybe we could come to some kind of … arrangement? Quid pro quo, gentleman."

"So these names, they're what? Freebies?"

"Not at all," Crowley said. "Tokens of my goodwill and willingess to play fair."

"You don't give anything away, Crowley," Sam said, eyes narrowing as he studied the demon.

Crowley looked down, smiling. "Ah, Moose you know me too well."

"Where's Kevin?" Dean asked abruptly.

The demon's smile widened. "Kevin, yes, I do believe he's my new favourite toy."

"What the hell's that supposed to mean?" Dean stared at him.

"Wind him up, watch him go."

_Sonofabitch_. Chained to a fucking chair in the middle of a fucking dungeon and Crowley could still wreak misery. His mouth thinning, Dean glanced at Sam.

"Check the names, I'll find the kid."

Sam nodded, looking at Crowley.

Crowley looked back at him. There was something a little bit different about Moose, the demon thought as he watched him turn away and walk out of the room. Was Sam finally coming into alignment with his brother's steel core of morality? Or was it something else … something invasive in Sam's eyes.

* * *

><p>Dean climbed the stairs back to the library, slowing as he saw Kevin coming down the hall toward him, his backpack over one shoulder.<p>

"Where d'you think you're going?" he asked him gruffly, hiding the relief that Kevin hadn't made it out of the building at least.

Kevin looked at the floor and veered past him, increasing his speed as he hit the library.

"Hey, hey, whoa," Dean said, lengthening his stride and reaching for the handle of Kevin's backpack, jerking the kid to a halt before he hit the stairs. "You lost the ability to speak?"

"You locked me in here!" Kevin burst out, staring back at him. "I'm leaving!"

"Like hell." Dean glowered at him. "We _told_ you not to talk to Crowley! Man, he messes with your head."

"My mom's alive," Kevin said, his teeth set together as he looked up at the taller man. "He said if I let him go, he'd give her back to me."

Dean nodded, his anger vanishing. "And you believed him?"

"He's still in there, isn't he?" Kevin snapped.

Dean bit back the first response that popped into his head, seeing the boy's fear and doubt. "You know Crowley's lying?"

"And if he's not?"

Looking away, Dean sucked in a breath. At Kevin's age, on this question, he'd've been a helluva lot more trouble, he thought tiredly.

"Even if she's still alive, she's – she's dead, Kevin," he said quietly. "In every way that matters. I'm sorry."

He watched Kevin struggle with that, look down and swallow back his hope, try to put it away, put it out, bury it.

"I know you want to bolt," he said, gesturing vaguely toward the door. "I get it. But out there, it's demons and it's angels, and they would all _love_ to get their hands on a prophet, on _the_ prophet." He looked down for a moment. "Even with Crowley here, this is still the safest place for you. It just is. And we need you, man."

Kevin lifted his gaze, his mouth twisting down. "Because I'm useful."

Dean saw the way Crowley had gone, and he shook his head. "No. Because you're a part of this now. A part of us. What we do, we can't do it without you, and you can't do it without us." He looked around the library, wondering how to explain to Kevin what he'd slowly been coming to realise for a while now. In this room, the ghosts of the scholars who'd lived and worked seemed to float just out of view, centuries of them.

"My, uh, grandfather, said that this place, this order, was first created for the people who knew what was out there. So that they could fight it but not on their own. They could fight with a – a family of members who all knew what was at stake, knew what they were facing."

He looked back at the young man in front of him. "Like us. Out there, no one knows what this is like, Kevin. There's no one you can trust, no one you can put your back against when you need it. But in here …," he hesitated, ducking his head. "In here, you can trust us. Me and Sam … we got your back."

Kevin looked away. "Crowley got me, on that boat."

"I know," Dean said, unconsciously straightening up as he felt the reverberative guilt of that moment. He'd stood here, in the library, watching Kevin's video on his brother's laptop and knowing that he'd failed, failed someone else and that they were paying for his mistake with their life. "That was on me, Kevin. I thought you were going to be safer away from us – fuck, it doesn't matter what I thought – I was wrong. And I can't take that back or make that right, but I don't want to make that mistake again."

The thud of the bag hitting the floor was muted, lost in the muffling effects of the stacks of books, in the height of the ceiling.

"You, uh, said you had food?" Kevin looked around the room, clearing his throat against the thickness that had unaccountably filled it.

"Yeah, fried chicken."

"You're kidding." Kevin looked at him flatly.

"What?!" Dean said, defences rising again. "It's food."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Four hours later.<strong>_

"Alright, pantry's full again," Dean said, walking into the library and straight to the sideboard, his neck cracking loudly as he tilted his head from one side to the other. "Kevin's back in his room, out like a light, and I deserve this," he added, mostly to himself as he poured generous doubles into two glasses, the crystal chiming gently in the otherwise silent room. Picking the glasses up, he turned around and walked to the table, putting one drink in front of his brother and taking a deep mouthful of the other as he sat down.

Sam looked at the glass and nodded. He'd spent the last two hours writing out the files and adding the information they'd gained into the existing reports.

Seeing the remote look in his brother's eyes, Dean asked, "What's up?"

Sam lifted his head, his gaze brushing over Dean and cutting away. He shrugged. "What Traci said, on the way back. She wasn't wrong."

"Maybe not, but she only had half the story, Sam," he said, looking at his brother until Sam's eyes met his.

"You seemed pretty clear on what you think about it now," Sam said diffidently, not quite sure he was ready to follow the topic just yet. He picked up his glass, sipping the whiskey and looking at Dean over the rim.

Dean leaned back in the chair, eyes half-hooded as he thought about that. When he'd been saying it to the girl, it'd come out without thought, really, without a conscious awareness of what his thoughts had been. He was a hunter. There was nothing else he could do, not and remain himself.

"Comes and goes," he finally said, lifting the glass and swallowing a mouthful when Sam smiled at non-answer.

"So, you ready for it?"

"Hmmm."

"Fallen angels. A deranged angel in Heaven keeping everyone else out," Sam said quietly, looking at the files in front of him. "Archdemon topside and on the loose, looking to take over Hell, looking for Crowley who's in our basement, trying to play Let's Make A Deal and we don't know how much of the purification really took with him. No angels on our side, Cas is practically human."

"Yeah, all the hits, all night long," Dean snorted into his glass. "What about you? How's the engine running?"

Sam put the glass down slowly. "Honestly … I feel better than I have in –" He looked up at his brother, his mouth curling up a little derisively. "– in a long time. Since I was at Stanford, I think."

He shook his head at Dean's sharply questioning look. "I mean, I realise it's crazy out there and I know we got trouble coming for us from every possible direction … but …"

"We have a home. Finally." He gestured around the quiet room, lit to an even, gentle glow by the lamps and sconces on the walls. "We have … friends again, around us. I still got my family," he added, smiling a little self-consciously as he looked to see how Dean would take that. His brother's face was intent, listening but he didn't react.

"The blood is gone and I'm … normal, and – uh – happy, I guess," Sam continued, uncertain of all the elements that had combined to create the feeling he was trying to describe to his brother. "Kind of hard to remember what that feels like but I think it's right."

"Huh."

"Yeah," Sam said, ducking his head. "I know you don't believe it, Dean, but this – this place, the order, you know we were talking about if it was meant, somehow?"

Dean nodded noncommittally. He remembered the conversation after they'd buried Henry. He remembered his unease at the thought of further manipulation by powers that didn't seem to care what happened to them so long as the plans – whatever the hell they were – were furthered.

"This feels like we're supposed to be here."

Dean dropped his gaze to the whiskey in his glass. _Supposed to be here_, the thought twisting savagely in his gut. Had Sam been supposed to die? Had he? He'd let an angel possess his brother. Let that angel take over and run his brother. He couldn't think of what had been supposed to happen. His whole life he'd escaped or dodged what had been supposed to happen. And none of it had ever worked out right.

He could lie like a snake-oil salesman to anyone but the people he cared about. He couldn't lie for shit to his brother and his best hope had always been to make sure the subject was never raised. Sam getting dewy-eyed with hope for the future, feeling secure in the love and trust of his family … not knowing what had really happened, not knowing he was –

He'd put his trust in an angel. Wasn't the first time. The times before, that trust had been shattered and stomped over and then shattered again. Heaven had been manipulating his family since long before he'd been born and still he hadn't learned.

The whiskey burned pleasantly along his tongue and down his throat as he tossed the rest down, and he got up, unable to sit next to Sam, who was relaxed and … _happy_, unable to remain still with the guilt he could feel agitating inside.

"Just gonna clean the guns," he said, by way of excuse when Sam looked up at him.

"Sure."

That excuse would always be easily accepted, which is why he'd used it. Dean turned away and headed for the collections rooms, picking up the gear bags from the hall on the way. He wasn't sure how long he could keep doing this. _As long as you have to_, he reminded himself with a lash of anger. _As long as it takes for the angel to fix Sam permanently and get the hell out of Dodge. And if it feels like someone's running razors over you every time you have to change the subject, or make up something to explain the inexplicable, every time you have to look into his eyes and lie straight to him, then that's something you're just going to have to suck up_.


	5. Chapter 5 Being Human

**Chapter 5 Being Human**

* * *

><p><em><strong>Emory Park, Iowa<strong>_

The gardens of St Anne's Cathedral were spacious and immaculate, a bequest from a long-ago benefactor giving the church the land and the same bequest having established the men's shelter that was close enough to provide sufficient workers to achieve the state of order. Lamps along the paths and the exterior lights of the buildings provided excellent illumination to enjoy the gardens, even in darkness. Father Bernard walked slowly, looking down at the diary in his hand.

"Monseigneur Cassidy will join us for dinner on Saturday, and Mass, of course," he said to the young priest walking beside him. "He is a man of strong opinions, rather bluntly spoken," he added, closing the book as he shook his head. "A pain in the ass, to be frank, so let's have everybody on their toes."

The young priest's mouth tucked in at the corners as he hid his amusement at Father Bernard's assessment, nodding in agreement.

They turned toward the parsonage and both stopped at the sight of the woman in front of them. She was tall and plain, dressed severely in a mid-grey pants suit, dark hair cut in a side-parted bob. Father Bernard frowned. They were not expecting visitors, particularly not business visitors this evening. Behind her, two men stood, their feet apart, weight evenly spread. The priest had been a boxer in his youth, he recognised the ready stance of both, and the association that came to him was of enforcers, not businessmen.

"Gentlemen," the woman said. "We're looking for a man we believe you may know. His name is Castiel."

"I'm afraid you are mistaken," Father Bernard said stiffly. "These grounds are not open to the public, madam, and I would suggest –"

The two men moved faster than Bernard thought was possible, one behind Father Rodriguez, pinning the young priest's arms behind him, the other dropping a hand onto his shoulder. Father Bernard flinched away, dropping slightly to break the hold and the grip tightened like a vice, muscle and bone protesting under the crushing pressure.

"You are not at liberty to suggest anything to us, other than the location of the man we seek," the woman said crisply, stepping close to him. "He is in this area. We can feel him and he has been here."

"I don't know of anyone named Castiel," Father Bernard said, his eyes rolling around as the man beside him drew out a long, slender weapon, the edges glinting in the lamp light. "I am telling you the truth!"

"Well, we shall certainly satisfy ourselves that you are," the woman told him, nodding to the two men. Father Bernard's eyes bulged as the man next to him slapped a hand over his mouth, the fingers of the hand holding his shoulder driving in through his flesh beneath his collarbone and the sharp snap of the bone loud in the quiet night air.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

_Your tasks are coming, you must be ready. _

The voice that was not a voice, that he couldn't hear with his ears, echoed in his mind as he gasped and sat up, throwing the bed covers aside in a sweeping motion. These dreams were going to drive him nuts, Dean thought, swinging his legs to the floor and leaning forward, the suffocating closeness of the dream clinging to the edges of his consciousness.

He rubbed his hands over his face and stood, grabbing his jeans and dragging them on and walking fast out of the room to the bathroom next door. With the tap running full, he dipped his hands into the flow and doused himself, trying to wash away the sense of foreboding.

Between the effort of living a lie to his brother, worrying about what the hell he was going to do about Abaddon, the fallen angels out there, Cas wandering around the country and apparently unable to figure out the bus timetables to Kansas, he didn't need cryptic fucking dreams adding to the mess that was rolling around in his head.

It'd been four days and there was still no word from his friend. Longmont was a six-hour drive from Lebanon, a near-straight shot along US-36 and the angel should've been able to hitch a ride without a problem. Even walking a lot of the way he should've been here by now.

He dried his face, avoiding the mirror as he turned back to the door, and walked down the hall to the stairs.

Abaddon wanted Crowley. Another can of worms he was reluctant to open very widely. He wasn't sure if the archdemon could find this place, he was hoping that she wouldn't put it together with either Crowley or themselves, at least. The demon had resurrected the body of Josie Sands, and he didn't think it was out of sentimentality. Sands had been here, or at least would've known of it, he thought morosely, turning at the bottom of the stairs and going to the kitchen. Her memories; of hunters, of contacts, of places, had to be what Abaddon had wanted her for.

He blinked in surprise at the sight of the coffee pot, full and hot and releasing its intoxicating scent into the room. Sam must've gotten up early. A glance at the clock on the wall above the range told him it was just past five.

Pouring out a cup, he drank a mouthful, the hot liquid finishing the job of pushing the remaining, unresolvable fragments of the dream down into the recesses of his mind as he wandered back along the hall to the library.

Yavoklevich hadn't come up with any locations for the angels, although he'd tagged a number of deaths that could've been related. Angels searching for vessels, those deaths had suggested. Searching for them and not having much luck. The common COD was messy.

There were still a number of hunters MIA. He wondered if they were keeping their heads down or if they'd run into the fallen. Pointless to speculate, he told himself firmly, setting the cup down on the polished table and dropping into a chair next to it.

The clunk-clunk of the locking rings made him look up at the gallery, his brother coming through the door and closing it behind him.

"Hey."

"Morning," Sam said, coming down the stairs. "You hungry? Eaten yet?"

Dean eyed the bag Sam was carrying, getting to his feet. "What'd you get?"

"Bacon, eggs, flour, you know, stuff," Sam told him, coming up the library steps. "Thought I'd make breakfast."

"You?"

"Yeah, me," Sam said, lifting a shoulder in a shrug as he walked to the table. "And if you lose the attitude, I'll even do yours with extra grease."

"Sam –"

"No, stay there, take your fifteen minutes to wake up properly or whatever it is you're doing when you're waiting for the joe to kick in, I'll handle it."

"What –?" Dean watched him stride from the room toward the kitchen. The last time he'd seen his brother this hyper had been in … '11, he thought. Jogging in the mornings.

He sat down again, picking up the cup of coffee distractedly and drinking. Five days ago, Sam had been lying in a bed, with a fucking respirator doing his breathing for him. Zeke might've just been doing his job, he considered, but he was using his brother's soul as the power station and that was nagging at him more than he could admit.

The coffee had cooled and he swallowed the rest, getting up and walking down the hall. In the kitchen, Sam was humming softly, the smell of frying eggs and bacon wafting around the room, toast popping out of the toaster, the kitchen's rectory-style table set with plates, knives and forks.

"I would have brought it out," Sam said, turning and seeing him in the doorway.

"Needed a refill." Dean lifted his cup and walked to the counter, picking up the pot. "So, uh, you're feeling okay, then?"

"Yeah, I feel great," Sam said, going back to the range and flipping the eggs.

"Uh, good, that's … um … good," Dean said, wondering how the hell he was going to be able to ask what he needed to without arousing his little brother's suspicions.

"What?" Sam turned around and looked at him.

"It's – you went through the trials," Dean said, shaking his head. "You do remember that, right? The coughing and bleeding and not being able to walk straight most of the time?"

"Yeah," his brother said, pulling the bacon from the broiler and loading a plate. "I remember it, Dean. But … look at me, man, I'm okay. That's over."

"Yeah, I'm sure you are, but you know –"

"Here," Sam said, cutting him off and handing him a plate. "Sit down and eat."

"Uh …" Dean took the plate and put it on the table, setting the cup beside it. "It's just it might be a good idea to take it easy for a while, you know, and didn't act like you were –"

"Possessed by an angel," Sam finished, his expression smoothing out, his voice deepening and flattening, as he set his plate of toast on the table. Dean stared at him, the cool regard of the angel slightly unnerving.

"He does feel better," Ezekiel said, turning to look at Dean as he sat down. "A work in progress, of course, but I am slowly healing him."

Dean looked away. It wasn't Sam when the angel looked out. And it stirred memories he'd just as soon have left buried deeply. "That's great … um … but, uh, Sam –"

"I have news," Ezekiel interrupted, looking down at the plate and back to Dean. "I have heard more from the angels. Not all are wandering around in confusion –"

"Yeah," Dean cut him off. "Some of them are after Cas."

"There is a faction, within them, that is rapidly organising, and finding human vessels to contain them," Ezekiel continued.

Dean looked at him. "Led by Naomi?"

"I have not heard that name," Ezekiel said slowly. "It is the faction's leadership who want Castiel found."

"Why?" Dean asked him, the question blunt. "Done is done, right? Are they just after revenge for being thrown out?"

"I don't know what drives them," the angel admitted. "They talk of finding him but that is all." He paused and leaned toward Dean. "You see, I can be of use, Dean."

The expression on his brother's face, intense and utterly serious, was not familiar to Dean and he looked away, discomforted by the alienness. His creep-o-meter was buzzing on high.

"Yeah, well so can my brother," he said. "So, why don't you go … check your email and-and if I need your help, I'll let you know."

"Dean –"

"I said, I'll let you know," Dean said, more sharply. He couldn't deal with Sam not being Sam when he'd risked so much to get his brother back. And that expression was just too fucking reminiscent of the last time Sam had been possessed by an angel.

"You know, Cas is human now," Sam said, leaning back in his chair and looking at the plate in front of him. "It's gonna take him a lot longer to travel now."

Dean looked at him tiredly. "I'm gonna get whiplash."

"What?"

"Uh, nothing," he said hurriedly, picking up his fork and knife and stabbing the food with a little more force than was necessary. "I was thinking, if the angels are organising then that makes them a lot more dangerous than we thought."

Sam looked at him, his toast arrested mid-way to his mouth as his forehead creased up a little. "Why do you think they're organising?"

Dean looked at the box he'd put himself into, unable to think of a single valid reason for what he'd just said. "Uh, well … it would … make sense for them to be organising," he fumbled, waving a hand in a diversionary gesture. "That's not the point," he continued, seeing his brother trying to work around that. "The more of them are after Cas, the worse it is, so – we gotta find him."

Sam nodded thoughtfully and Dean was relieved to see his brother's monster brain had shifted gears and was thinking of how, instead of his foot-in-mouth comment.

"You think they can track him?" Sam asked, brow wrinkling up as he considered all the implications of what his brother had told him. "He said the angels could see us, before he marked us."

It was a good question, Dean realised. He hadn't asked at the time how the angels had been able to sort them out from the other six-plus-change billion human beings on the planet but he thought it'd had something to do with their souls.

"I don't know," he answered slowly. "Cas is human, but he doesn't have a soul."

"He said that angels were 'beings of celestial frequencies'," Sam remembered abruptly. "So maybe they can track his frequency?"

"It doesn't help us," Dean said, a scowl drawing his brows together at the thought. "I need a map of the country."

He looked around at the sound of footsteps in the hall. Kevin appeared in the doorway, his shoulders slumped and his eyes pouched and bleary.

"Coffee."

"In the pot," Dean said, gesturing behind him. He watched as the prophet dragged his feet across the kitchen floor.

"Bacon and eggs?" he asked, pushing his plate over.

"Lots of both," Kevin said without turning around, his hands shaking a little as he lifted the glass pot and filled his cup.

"Tough going on the tablet?" Sam asked, glancing at Dean uneasily. They'd seen Kevin like this before.

"No, it's a breeze," Kevin said sarcastically, dropping into the chair and attacking Dean's breakfast. "Be just another five."

"Anything we can do to help?" Dean asked him, pulling in a deep breath as he forced his impatience down. The kid had been working non-stop on the demon tablet for three days and it was taking its toll.

"No."

"Okay, then," he said, getting up. "I'll be in the library," he added to Sam as he refilled his cup and carried it out.

"Yeah, right behind you," Sam said to his brother's departing footsteps. He looked at Kevin.

"What's going on?"

Kevin looked up at him, chewing fast and swallowing hard, washing the food down with a mouthful of coffee. He looked down at his plate, the conversation he'd had with Dean drifting back to him. He still wasn't entirely sure he believed the oldest Winchester's words. Dean'd seemed on the level but …

"It's the tablet," he admitted finally, lifting his head. "It's – I'm not – I'm not really here, when I'm reading it."

"What do you mean?" Sam asked him, brow wrinkling up in concern.

Looking away, Kevin swallowed again, unsure of how to explain to him what it felt like, being opened up, everything raw and painful and the words filling his mind, filling him entirely. "It's like I disappear and something else is there, inside of me, in my head."

"Like you're being possessed?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. I don't think so, more like, I'm empty and the words, the whole tablet, just seems to fill me up." He looked at Sam. "It hurts. It's exhausting and I can't stop. Once I've touched the tablet, I can't stop until the tablet decides."

Sam frowned at Kevin's choice of words. "The tablet decides?"

"Or maybe until I'm near to collapsing," Kevin amended, thinking about it. "It cuts out and I have to eat and sleep."

He looked back at Sam, setting his fork back on the empty plate. "It scares the hell out of me, Sam."

Sam nodded, getting up and taking the plate from in front of him. "Stay there, I'll make something else."

Kevin slumped over the table, finishing the cup of coffee.

"I think Dean was right," Sam said slowly as he pulled out a bowl and eggs, flour and sugar, setting them on the counter. "We have to make this a one-shot, get whatever's on the tablets out into some other format, so that you only have to do it once."

"It's too big," Kevin said tiredly. "And it's not like a book or anything that people write down. It's in pieces and it comes together in my head, but not like – like – anything else would. The trials gave instructions but it took me three months to get how they were supposed to be worded, how they should come out. I never even saw the bit about the ending, you know … the contender dying before the gates were even closed."

"Do you think that was God's plan, Kevin?" Sam asked, turning to look at him over his shoulder. "That the self-sacrifice would close the gates?"

"No," Kevin said, fiddling with his cup. "That's just it, there was nothing like that in there that I'd seen."

Frowning, Sam turned back to the bowl and broke the eggs, setting the shells aside. It could've been as simple as not having gotten that far, he thought uneasily. Or it could've been that having Metatron around, a walking, talking source, they'd thought, they hadn't worried about the rest of the tablet. No matter which, he couldn't see a way out for Kevin.

"We need to figure out a way to space the reading out more," he said slowly. "Make sure you get a decent break between sessions, somehow."

Kevin nodded unhappily. That'd been the best he could come up as well.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Emory Park, Iowa<strong>_

Cas looked at the tube of toothpaste. He was supposed to have a brush to go with it, he thought, remembering that Dean and Sam both had them. He'd looked through the small bag Dean carried with him when he was travelling. There'd been a few things in it that he thought he might need.

Squeezing a blob of the thick, white paste onto his tongue, he turned as another man walked into the communal bathroom.

"Hey, Clarence, how much longer are you going to be with us?" Francis asked, hanging up his towel on the hook by the door.

"I'll be moving on tonight, after work," Cas said, working the horrendously strong mint-flavoured paste along his teeth. His tongue was burning and he leaned over, spitting out the rest and rinsing his mouth from the running tap. He wasn't sure that the small brush he'd seen the brothers use would be that much help with the taste. "It's time."

The shelter was close to the bus station and a man had told him of it when the truck driver had let him out there. He'd slept in a bed, showered and had been given food, in return for the light duties in the gardens of the cathedral down the block. Again, he'd overshot his destination. He needed to head south and west. He hadn't been able to find a way to locate the bunker without his angel abilities and that lack was bothering him a great deal, particularly when he looked around at the population surrounding him who appeared to have no great trouble in working out where they were going.

The biology of being human was another constant irritation, he thought, feeling the uncomfortable press of his bladder. Food and liquid had to be consumed but then he was forced to evacuate what wasn't utilised a short time later. He thought it was a highly inefficient design and wondered why his Father, who had managed to address significantly more difficult designs in significantly more efficient ways had condemned his favourite creatures to the endless rounds.

He has a sense of humour, Metatron had said. Perhaps that was it. Being chained to a tedious and endlessly repetitious biological process was one way of reminding humanity that it was not all-powerful, that it was, in fact, merely inches from the rest of the animal kingdom.

* * *

><p>The walk from the shelter to the cathedral was short and usually pleasant on a fine day. Cas took the wooden-handled spike from the prelate and wandered into the gardens. There was a surprising amount of trash to be found, scattered over the grounds. He found it mystifying that despite the numerous bins marked clearly for the purpose of disposing of unwanted items, people seemed to believe that the ground, the grassed and verdant gardens of the cathedral, were a perfectly acceptable receptacle for the flyers and newspapers and lunch wrappings and empty soda cans, bottles, tissues and other detritus from their daily lives. Stabbing the sharp metal spike through an empty plastic bag, he lifted it and removed it from the spike, carrying it the few yards to the portable trash bags that were set up for the purpose.<p>

People mystified him a lot more now, he realised with a moment's reflection, than they had when he'd spent centuries watching them, invisible and alone. In much of that time, he'd seen poverty and illness and famine and a harsh, often violent life. Things were considerably better now, yet he had the feeling that he was seeing more fear and anger, half-hidden behind a pretence of conviviality, more obvious in the shadows of the city where the homeless and the have-nots slept wherever they could get out of the wind. The wealth he saw in great abundance did not appear to have changed the situation at all. He'd noted the increasing dissatisfaction in the people around him too, an underlying sense of confusion that appeared to be connected to a lack of purpose, although most of the people he'd seen were engaged in some occupation.

He stopped as he saw the droplet on the paving stone, sinking slowly to one knee and reaching out to touch it. The red liquid was thick and sticky, viscous on his fingertip. Looking around the ground surrounding the stone, he saw more droplets, leading to the graveyard that sat on the boundary of the cathedral grounds.

Leaving his spike by the trash bin, he walked across the grass, his gaze following the red trail to the gates of the cemetery. As he pushed the iron gate ajar, he saw the source of the blood immediately, the two priests impaled on the large monuments, their eyes burned from their sockets, blood, thick and red and cold, pooled beneath them.

They were tracking him.

The thought wasn't new nor was it surprising. He'd wondered about it. It'd been the reason he'd kept moving, spending only a night in one place before moving on. The scars of the deep wounds he'd carved into himself to hide from Naomi were gone, wiped from his vessel when he'd returned to Heaven. He wasn't sure he could replicate them now, without any power to limit the blood loss and the shock to his vessel.

He couldn't feel his kind anymore, couldn't sense the fluctuations in frequencies or differentiate them from the natural harmonics he could sense from the world, and he'd hoped that they wouldn't be able to see him, one among so many, just another human.

Just another human … _without a soul_, he realised. That alone would mark him out.

Rubbing a hand absently over his chest, he thought of something he'd seen, something Dean had explained to him. He turned abruptly and walked from the cemetery, walking out the side gate to the busy street beyond. They were closer than they'd ever been before and he was running out of time.

He could not head for the bunker, he realised, walking down the street and looking around for some indication of where to go next. The angels would be searching for the brothers as well and he could not bring that danger to them, even if it was a place of safety. When he reached the highway, he stayed on the right, and the driver of the truck that stopped for him said he was going east, to Indiana. Cas nodded and climbed up to the high cab, settling himself and staring out through the windshield.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

Sam sat in front of the laptop, fingers resting lightly on the keys. Beside him, Dean leaned over a map of the middle states, staring at the concentric red circles he'd drawn out with Longmont at the centre.

"This is how far he could've gotten, one, two and three days out from Longmont," he said, tapping the map.

"Okay," Sam said, calling up a search on strange deaths in Colorado first. "Here we are, same day Cas called from Longmont, same time, weird murder, cops said it was like the girl was blasted from the inside out."

"Angel kill," Dean said certainly, looking at the screen. "Might have just missed Cas. Unless they got him."

Sam glanced at him, hearing the faint edge under the prosaic tone. He looked down at the map and widened the search to the surrounding states. "You got an Emory Park, Iowa in those circles?"

"Emory Park," Dean repeated softly, looking at Iowa. "Just saw that, yeah, two days out of Longmont."

"Two priests were murdered there, Thursday," he said, reading the report. "Eyes burned out, evidence of torture … they were impaled on posts –"

"Torture?"

"Yeah," Sam said, looking at him.

"Angels looking for info," Dean speculated, staring at his brother. He straightened abruptly. "They get to him before we do –"

"Yeah," Sam said quickly. He wasn't sure if Dean was going to handle losing the angel again all that well. He'd told him they had friends, and he knew his brother counted the angel as that, as the only close friend he had left since Bobby had died. Cas had been forgiven almost as many times as he had, he realised slowly. For Dean, that meant something, a lot of something.

"We'll start in Emory Park," he said, closing the laptop and gesturing to the hall. "Work up what happened to the priests and see if anyone remembers Cas."

"Right." Dean turned away, his footsteps slowing as he walked to hall.

"What?"

"Nothing," Dean said, glancing back at Sam. "Just … nothing," he said again, turning away and walking faster, out of the room. Sam watched him go.

Cas had pulled Dean out of Hell. He'd helped him to escape from Heaven's clutches in time to get to the convent. He'd stopped his brother from handing himself over to Michael and he'd gone to the cemetery with him and died, getting rid of Michael so that Dean could talk to him when Lucifer had had him wrapped up tight. And he'd healed him afterwards. Not the inside, but he'd saved him from dying on that barren ground where the hole had closed up.

He'd seen everything, he thought, walking out of the library and down the hall to the stairs, his feet finding the way automatically as his thoughts churned on. He'd seen, he'd _known_, everything that his brother had hidden away from everyone else, and he'd stood behind Dean when his brother had asked him to, even when they'd gone up against Dick Roman and Cas' marbles had been mostly scattered.

It wasn't something he'd really tallied up before. He'd seen, when Cas had admitted to his conspiracy with Crowley and had broken the wall in his head, that something had broken in Dean, something his brother couldn't put back together. He'd seen Dean try to forgive the angel and at some point in Purgatory, he thought he had. Or had learned to come to terms with the fact that Cas had acted, much the same as he always had, from good intentions and without trying to destroy his friend's trust.

Last year's betrayal had cut deeper, Sam thought, climbing the stairs and walking down the corridor to his room. Or maybe the fracture had just opened up along the old lines. But at the same time, or sometime around then anyway, he thought Dean had found a way through a lot of the stuff he'd been not dealing with. Had come to accept a lot of things. He wasn't sure. They hadn't talked about it.

He was sure of only one thing about his brother at this point. Dean had felt the angel had been his responsibility and he'd set it aside for a time and now he was regretting that decision. Now he was feeling guilty about it. He'd been surprised when Dean'd said that Cas would have to sink or swim on his own. It'd been unlike him to cut loose someone like that and at first, he thought that maybe Dean had done it out of resentment at the angel over the last year's entangled mess of mindbending and misplace loyalties. Now, he wasn't so sure.

The canvas duffel bag sat mutely at the end of his bed, signifying another round of heading out into the big bad. He exhaled softly as he looked at it, then glanced around the room. Unlike his brother, he hadn't made much of an effort here, not sure how long they would stay, not sure if he wanted to try again to make something that would mean he was settling. He'd told Dean that they finally had a home. At the time, he'd meant it, he thought, pulling the suit from the closet and tossing it on top of the bag. Now, he realised, he'd meant that there was a home for Dean. He wanted more than four walls, a bed and the world's greatest repository of supernatural lore. He wanted a lot more than that.

Socks, jeans and a couple of shirts followed the suit and he looked around for the small kit he kept packed. It was already in the bag, he remembered after he'd looked around the room twice.

He sank down into the armchair, his gaze moving aimlessly around, a sense of uneasiness lingering. It wasn't that he'd been kidding himself, he thought restlessly. He did feel good, he felt happier, more … centred …than he had for a long time. The rage had gone. The fear of the itch, that itch deep inside, that had gone too. For the first time since their father had died, they had everything they needed, and the means to find out more, to take the fight to the creatures they were dealing with, ways of locking them away, of sending them back, of killing them outright. That felt vaguely miraculous. And they had a place where they could find out what they needed to know.

Memory broke through and Sam squeezed his eyes shut tightly against it. _Warm sunshine spilling over the messed-up bed and warm skin lying against him, from shoulder to hip._

He hadn't loved her. He knew that. And he knew too that like his brother, that time had held contentment in tiny measurements, because he couldn't talk about himself or his past, what he'd done and seen and felt. But those moments, as brief and unlasting as they'd been, had done something to him.

He'd told Dean he could see a light at the tunnel and he hadn't been talking about closing the Gates and shutting Hell down. He'd been talking of making the life they lived, this life, more than it was now. He could see more, could imagine it could be more.

One day, he thought, running a hand through his hair as he looked around the room again, he would come here for work, but he'd go home again, a real home, where someone else waited and he could be himself and lose himself in that comfort.

"You ready?"

Dean's voice bellowed down the corridor and Sam got up, stuffing the last few pieces of clothing into the bag and tossing his Taurus on the top. He looked around the boringly familiar room, identical to the ten others on the floor, with its brocade coverlet and stiff, old-fashioned furniture. It looked like a hotel room. An expensive hotel room, but still … an anonymous place for a transient life. It wasn't his home, he thought, brow wrinkling up a little as he turned for the door.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lafayette, Indiana<strong>_

Cas walked slowly through the teeming street, staring at the almost tidal surge of the mass of people around him, the storefronts to either side, his nose twitching and stomach growling as he passed a stand selling hot food by the roadside. The truck driver had given him some money, a few dollars to get something to eat and he'd used it up hours ago, the hunger clawing at him when they'd stopped on the outskirts of the large town.

The daylight was fading and he needed someplace to rest, needed to find something to eat. Somewhere, in this place, there would a shelter, like the one in Iowa. But he couldn't find it and he couldn't spend all night looking for it.

Ahead, the crowds had thinned and he saw bridges crossing the road, their thick columns of concrete and steel towering above the ground, the rumble of trains and traffic rising and falling overhead.

"Watch it!" a voice said from beside him and he turned to see a sharp-featured man turn back to stare at him coldly. Looking away, Cas kept walking. The rage that simmered below the man's face was frightening in its inexplicability. He seemed to have enough clothing, enough to eat. He wasn't sure what had prompted the look in the man's eyes, a look that had seemed hungry for pain, for violence. He was reasonably certain the man had not been possessed.

Under the shadows of the overpasses, fires were burning in big metal drums, staving off the encroaching chill of the night. Cas drifted closer to one, pulling his jacket across his chest as he realised he was getting colder.

"You hungry?" one of the men beside the nearest drum asked diffidently. The angel looked at him and nodded.

"Food over there," the man added, turning and gesturing toward a thicket of concrete columns, the backs of several buildings providing further shelter. "Just ask."

"Thank you," Cas replied, turning to walk in the direction indicated. The man who'd directed him was dirty and unshaven, hunched into layers of thin clothing, newspaper stuffed under the garments. The man who'd snapped at him had been clean, his hair cut and face shaved in a stylised manner, his clothing well-made and of thick, warm material. The contrast between the behaviour of the two men was vivid and he wondered at it.

Four more metal drums held fires in a loose square behind the sheltered lee of the columns and he could smell food cooking, the scents rising tantalisingly and spreading through the area. The angel's mouth filled with saliva and the smells set off another series of grumbling noises in his stomach.

"You sound like you could use a bite." A man stood by a big, battered pot, stirring it as he looked at him. Tall and dark-haired, he was dressed in a non-matching assortment of clothing, piled on in layers like the others. He waved the spoon he held to a pile of clean, bright steel cans, stacked on a nearby packing crate, and Cas reached for one, picking up a plastic spoon from the loose spill lying next to the cans.

"It's a bit of a mix," the man warned him, ladling out enough to fill the can. "But it's hot and it won't kill you or give you anything you don't want."

"Thank you," the angel replied, passing the can from hand to hand as the steel heated under his fingers.

The man nodded and Cas turned away, catching the bottom of his jacket and insulating his hand from the rapidly increasing heat with it. He saw a place to sit and walked over to it, cradling the welcome warmth of the can through the layer of his jacket in both hands.

"Mikey give you enough?" Beside him, another dark-haired man sat, dipping his spoon into his can and lifting it to his mouth.

"Yes, he was very generous," Cas said, looking at him. His jaw was darkly shadowed and his face was lined and dirty, his clothing as mismatched as everyone else's, layers for warmth. Bright irises made his eyes vivid in the firelight. "I was so hungry, it's very kind of you and your friends to share."

"It's okay," the man said, nodding slightly as he spooned another mouthful out. "There's a restaurant down on Fourteenth, they bring up stuff and we try and make sure no one around here starves."

The food was more liquid than solid, Cas thought, lifting a spoonful to his mouth and tasting it. It was good. He didn't know what was in it, the few solids were mushy yet tasty and he swallowed it, grateful for the heat that followed it down and filled him.

"You know, I'm finding that, often, the people with the least to give are the most generous," he said, turning back to the man beside him. The man looked at him without comment, turning back to his food.

"Anyway, I have to plan better," Cas continued, thinking about that. "I ran out of food very quickly today."

"You're new at this, aren't you?"

"Yes," Cas agreed readily. "I've done it once before, but that was for a limited time and I had more help then." He ate another mouthful, remembering the bus ride to Bobby's house. "It seems unlikely, I know, but I did forget how it feels to need food."

The man's spoon stopped mid-air on the way to his mouth as he looked at the angel.

Cas saw the arrested gesture and shook his head. "It was such a short time, you see. My longer sojourn, I was completely taken care of."

"Right."

"The worst of that first experience was the itch," Cas mused, finishing his can of soup and setting it down beside him as he thought of waking in the hospital, powerless, alone and so completely cut off from Heaven that he couldn't even stop the unreachable bed bug itch. "I couldn't get rid of it."

The other man continued eating. Perhaps experiences like that were common, Cas thought.

"Well," he continued, exhaling as the food settled in his stomach, and oblivious to the other man's lack of response. "I'd better try falling asleep. It's quite a process, isn't it?"

The man looked at him curiously. "Try counting sheep."

Cas nodded politely at the suggestion, although he couldn't think how that might help, and got to his feet. On the other side of overpass, a number of abandoned vehicles had been left and he headed for them. Dean and Sam slept in their car, quite a lot. He thought a vehicle would be more weatherproof than the cardboard and packing crate domiciles those who lived here favoured.

The cars and the small truck were mostly crushed and unusable. The bus, closest to the buildings on the other side of the chainlink fence seemed the most likely to provide comfort for the night. Something had happened to the middle of it, he noted as he walked around it, but the front end seemed intact.

_I just drove like sixteen hours straight, okay? I'm human. And there's stuff I got to do … in this case, sleep. I just need like four hours once in a while, okay?_

The memory of his friend's voice slipped into his mind as he chose a seat and took off his jacket, rolling it up to make a pillow for his head. He remembered waiting by the side of the road for hours to allow Dean to sleep. And then turning up and finding him not there at all.

Sighing, Cas closed his eyes. _Counting sheep_, he thought, bemused. _Counting them doing what?_

Several times in the last two days, he'd seen payphones, had looked at them and wondered if he should call the Winchesters, ask them for help. The memory of the priests, their bodies opened and their eyes gone, had quickly suppressed his needs and he'd move past the phones, continuing to head east although he knew now he was getting further from the bunker. He couldn't risk bringing the angels to them. Couldn't risk their lives again. His own, mortal now and without recourse to any other power, was not worth theirs.

Behind the darkness of his closed lids, other memories unfolded. Most of them held the brothers, the men he'd rebelled against Heaven to help. He couldn't pinpoint the moment that he'd realised that what they had told him, what Dean had told him, was true. He'd known, but had not yet acknowledged that Uriel had been working against him, against them when the angel had tried to kill him and had been killed by Anna instead. Had it been then that he'd begun to listen to Dean? Listen to him and be swayed by the proof that had been building and building. He had deliberately disobeyed when he'd taken Dean to the convent, had knowingly put himself on the side of humanity instead of his brothers. Even more recently, when the constructs Naomi had place in his mind had broken and smashed, and Crowley had pulled the tablet from inside of him, he'd gone looking for them, hoping to explain. Pride had ever been his sin, and the thought gouged at him. Too much like Lucifer and Michael, he realised uncomfortably, he didn't feel that pride when it reared up and made his decisions, but he saw the aftermath.

_You're a freakin' child, you know that? Just because you can do what you want doesn't mean that you get to do whatever you want!_

He exhaled, eyes opening slightly at that memory. Dean had been right. He'd been a child for thinking that evil could beget good, through some magic alchemy he'd hoped would exist. Why hadn't he seen that when Metatron had offered him salvation and a solution that was so obviously now a ploy? Why hadn't he told Dean and Sam about the scribe instead of believing in another angel and being betrayed yet again?

Pride. The hope that he could atone and make penance for all he'd done, take action by himself to solve the problems he'd created. He sighed against the glass. He _was_ a child.

And now it was on the brothers again to clean up the mess he'd made. They had the angel tablet and the prophet and Cas knew without a moment's doubt that they would be looking for something to undo what Metatron had done. He pushed aside his thoughts of himself as he remembered what Dean had told him in the phone call. Something had happened to Sam, something that had required angelic assistance. _I been prayin' to you all night!_ And Ezekiel had come in answer.

He sat up a little straighter as he considered that. He hadn't thought of how the angel had found Dean before, had been too bemired in his own fear and guilt and pain. But angels responded to the prayers directed to them, and Dean had had no idea who Ezekiel was when he'd spoken to him.

_An open prayer?_

Had his friend been so desperate that he'd sent a plea out into the aether to anyone? When it came to Sam, Cas knew he would do anything, would try anything, accepting whatever consequences his actions brought. It meant that not only had the angels who'd descended on the hospital in the midst of the call known clearly where he was, but his soul's key, the unique and unmistakable human identifier, was now known to any angel who'd heard that prayer.

Ezekiel would protect them, he told himself, an entirely too-human shiver rippling up his spine. The angel had proven himself in battle and in Heaven.

Sleep seemed further away than ever as he resettled his head against the rolled up jacket and closed his eyes again. Everything he'd done, since he'd set himself against Heaven, had made the situation worse. He forced his concentration to narrow, visualising a herd of sheep, grazing on a hillside, as he'd seen them many times in the lands to the east, when he'd watched over the tribes and small family groups who'd lived in the deserts. In his mind's eye, he made them move down the hill, one at a time, and began to count.

* * *

><p>Two hours had passed when he woke, shivering a little in the cold metal and glass of the bus, the faintest of melodies shrilling at the edges of his senses. He sat up and looked around, seeing the empty asphalt and grey concrete columns, no figure standing there watching him, or hiding in the deep, black shadows beneath the overhead roads.<p>

Sitting up, he shrugged the jacket from his shoulder and stood, looking around through the windows of the bus warily. Visible or not, it was still here, he thought. The angel sword dropped from his sleeve into his hand and he tightened his grip on it as he moved down to the front of the bus, stepping down and holding the doorframe as he leaned out to look further.

He turned back and saw him, the vessel nondescript but the angel within it burning brightly. A blade flickered in the thin light and Cas bit down on a scream as it slashed through his shirt and skin and into the muscle of his arm, the sharp and vicious pain loosening his grip on the sword in his hand for a second, his free hand swinging up to hold the open edges together, registering the warmth of blood flowing over his fingers.

"You're human," the angel said to him, staring at the wound.

It was the only chance he'd get, he knew and he swung forward, stepping close to the angel's vessel and driving the point of his sword deep into the torso of the man, light flooding from eyes and nose and mouth and from the entry point of the sword, brightening and filling the bus.

When the vessel dropped, sliding off the sword point, he lifted his hand and looked at the blood coating his fingers. Mortal, he reminded himself forcefully, reaching for the jacket on the seat and drawing it over one shoulder. And unwarded.

He had to go. He needed protection and he needed it now.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Emory Park, Iowa<strong>_

Dean looked around as Francis led him toward the cemetery. He was having a hard time imagining what the hell Cas had been doing here.

"He's about six foot, blue eyes, dark hair," he said, struggling to remember anything else about the angel that didn't include the part about him being an angel. "He's … uh … kind of abrupt, when he talks … not too many social skills," he added.

"Yeah," Francis said, nodding and turning to look at him. "Yeah, I think I know this guy you're talking about. He sounds like Clarence."

"Clarence?"

Francis gestured at the grounds. "The church runs a shelter in town, and gives us work here. We earn our keep," he explained. "Clarence spent a couple of nights here, and had to move on."

"He left when the bodies were found?"

"Matter of fact," Francis said slowly, the connection clearly having escaped him before. "Oh man, those poor guys were a mess. They must have really suffered. But at least now, they're with the angels."

Dean saw the shining faith in the man's face and looked away. "Sure as hell hope not," he muttered to himself. He glanced back at the man and caught the confusion on Francis' face, forcing a neutral smile and asking, "Clarence happen to mention where he was headed?"

"No. He just said that he always had to keep going," Francis told him. "He didn't have anything and he didn't talk much about himself."

Dean nodded and looked at the headstones. Yellow crime tape fluttered in the light breeze around the bases. "That's where they were found?"

"Yes, sir."

Angels torturing priests. _Whole new fucking ball game_. He turned back to Francis. "Thanks for your help."

"Sir?"

"Yeah?"

"Clarence isn't in trouble, is he? He seemed – well, he seemed to have his heart in the right place." Francis shrugged slightly.

Dean blinked as the memory of Alfie's words came back to him. "No, he's, uh, he's not in any trouble. We need to talk to him is all."

He hoped the angel wasn't in immediate trouble anyway, turning and walking back through the gardens to the car. It was a very slim hope. Cas had been in one sort of trouble or another for the last four years.

* * *

><p>The Impala was sitting in the shade by the sidewalk and he opened the door and slid into the driver's seat, looking at his brother.<p>

"Alright, well, he's definitely been here," he said to Sam, reaching up to loosen his tie slightly. "Good news is he's getting cagey, using a fake name. Clarence."

Sam snorted. "That's what Meg used to call him." He looked back at the screen on his knees. "Course, he never got that it was the name of a pretty famous angel."

"What?"

Sam looked back at his brother's expression. "'It's A Wonderful Life'."

The non-comprehension on Dean's face didn't change.

"Dude, seriously?"

"What'd you come up?" Dean asked, frowning slightly. He wouldn't have seen a movie with a title like that under duress, and he couldn't work out why Sam never got that about him. Half the time, it felt like despite the last eight years of spending every single minute of every single fucking day together, his brother knew no more about him now than when he'd climbed into his ride in Palo Alto.

Sam saw the defensiveness in Dean's eyes and cleared his throat. He could spend the rest of his life sitting in the damned car with his brother and still not know him, he thought, looking back at the screen. "Another angel kill," he said, shoving that thought far away. "Just outside of a town called Lafayette, about a day's travel east of here."

"That Indiana?" Dean asked, peering at the screen.

"Yeah," Sam confirmed. "Body was found in a homeless camp, insides barbecued, the whole nine."

"Homeless guy," Dean said.

"No, a pharmacist," Sam corrected him, brow creasing up as he read the details. "From Dayton."

Leaning back, Dean let that sink in. "Some pharmacist drove from Ohio to Indiana and died in a homeless camp." He reached forward and turned the key. "Any background?"

"Guy was engaged to be married, well-liked, had a good start on his career and was a member of his local church," Sam said dryly, reading from the screen.

"Huh."

"Yeah."

Pulling out, the black car slowly increased its speed as Dean worked his way through the town and out to the highway.

* * *

><p>"What'd Cas say about angels and vessels?" he asked when they'd cleared the suburbs.<p>

Sam tilted his head back, closing his eyes as he tried to remember the few conversations the angel had mentioned it, and what Jimmy had said. "They need the consent of the vessel. Not all people are suitable to be vessels, the bloodlines had to be right, or they weren't configured the right way … that's about it."

"Can't be all that easy to find the right vessel then, can it?" Dean asked, his voice casual. "I mean, finding someone who's suitable who'll also say 'yes'."

Straightening a little in the seat, Sam opened his eyes and stared through the windshield. "No, like finding needles in haystacks."

Dean flicked a sideways glance at his brother. He shouldn't have brought it up, he thought, taking in a deeper breath against the tension that was tightening the muscles of his chest and back. He hated the need to lie to Sam, to feel the pressure of having to watch what he said, not knowing if something would slip out and tweak his brother's suspicions, not knowing if by not talking, he might be short-circuiting a process they'd used successfully for years, tossing thoughts back and forth and coming up with a left-field but perfectly possible answer.

He didn't know how long he could keep doing it either. _As long as you have to_, the small voice in his mind that habitually answered the questions he didn't want answers to, replied. _As long as it takes till Sam's all healed up and himself again_. Would he risk telling his brother, even then? The voice was silent for that one and he loosened his grip on the wheel, knowing that by the time they reached Indiana, he was going to have a thumping headache at the base of his skull if he couldn't figure out a way to let that tension go.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Detroit, Michigan<strong>_

The wallet, a plain, black calf-skin leather billfold, sat on the ground, half-hidden behind the leg of the park bench. Cas had been staring at it for almost an hour.

The owner had plainly dropped it, leaving without realising it, he thought, tension in his neck spiking down through his shoulders as he considered the small object. No one else had noticed it lying there. It could be considered a gift, he reasoned. Luck or destiny or just one of those small miracles that happen to people from time to time. He knew it wasn't. He knew too that picking it up would solve his immediate problems if it contained money.

_Can't use other people's credit cards_. Dean's voice spoke clearly in his mind. _Too easy to pick up an electronic trail and have the cops or whatever's hunting you on your ass_.

But cash was alright.

He looked around the park again. There was no one nearby, the nearest people were more than a hundred yards away, two women talking on a bench while their children played on the outlandish shapes of the small park's equipment.

_You need the money._

It was true, he did. He didn't think that would hold much water when he came to account for himself.

_Compared to decimating the population of Heaven, and large numbers of people here on Earth, do you really believe your Father is going to worry about some stolen cash?_

He got to his feet and crossed to the bench, sitting down and bending casually to pick up the wallet from its resting place. The leather was fine and felt smooth under his fingers. He opened it. Notes filled one section. A number of plastic cards filled the smaller slots in another. A clear plastic window showed another card, this one with a picture and the details of the owner of the wallet he held. Melvin Stapleton. He bowed his head for a moment, then took the cash from the wallet, returning it to the shadow under the bench. The notes were crisp and clean and there were a lot of them.

Folding them, Cas tucked the wad into his jeans pocket and stood up, walking down the path and away from the bench. He needed to hide, to be hidden, he thought as he walked down the street, following the crowds of people flowing along the sidewalks. He needed to ward himself so that no one could see him.

* * *

><p>The buildings changed, becoming taller and hunching close together. He looked around at the press of people surrounding him, pushing and hustling him along the street. He recognised the ideograms that accompanied the store signs, banners and pennants flapping in the breeze that carried a thousand scents along the closed space of the narrow roads toward him. Names leapt out at him and he slowed down, wondering if he could find what he was looking for here, in this place of noise and churning life.<p>

The store caught his eye as the smells from a roadside cart caught his nose. He looked from the windows covered with fine, small designs to the cart, piled with rolls and long, thin sausages. He had no idea if the money he carried would be enough for what he needed. He thought that if it was, he could eat later. He turned into the doorway, passing under the bright orange sign that proclaimed 'Ted's Tattoos'.

"Sure," the girl standing by the chair said, light flashing from the ring in her nose as she looked at the paper he held. "Take a couple of hours. Four-fifty."

He nodded. He would have enough, but there would be nothing left over.

"Be with you in fifteen minutes," she added, gesturing to the chairs near the door. "Take a load off."

Cas turned and sat down on the square-backed sofa.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Bedford, Virginia<strong>_

The house was neo-Italianate, built recently on fifteen acres of newly-acquired land, courtesy of the successful rise of the Reverend Buddy Boyle. Boyle's cheerful messages of salvation for all had come at the same time as the explosion of the internet and the proliferation of mobile devices and the combination had been a rocket ride to wealth the good reverend couldn't have dreamed of a few years earlier.

The angel stood by the window of the gentleman's study in the east wing, staring through the few pieces of transparent glass in the stained glass window out over the sweeping lawns and gardens.

The Reverend had been an easy find, Bartholomew thought in satisfaction. A man of simple principles and unfailing stupidity, he'd fallen into line with a few miraculous tricks and a good spiel. Now he spread the same spiel across the planet.

Boyle's reaction to the non-suitability of some people as vessels had been a needed lesson, he thought, if a messy one. Not everyone was destined to serve, he'd told the reverend and some people were not strong enough to hold the warriors of God within them. Enough spit and polish and the fool would believe anything. And that was as it should be. Humanity hadn't changed over the last two millennia, he thought. Still worshipping false idols and looking for a messiah to take care of them.

He heard the click of heels from the hall, recognising the tread of his lieutenant as she entered the room.

"Reverend Boyle's influence is astonishing."

The angel stared out through the window, his lips curling. "I'll never understand these people."

"Our fallen brothers and sisters are finding vessels faster than we could have hoped," Iskael said, her vessel's voice high and thin.

"They'd better," Bartholomew said coolly, turning around and walking past the desk toward her. "Have you marshalled every angel to continue the search for Castiel?"

"Yes," Iskael said, her gaze dropping under the reptilian look of the man in front of her. "Asriel is tracking him; he found a suitable vessel and reported that he was closing in."

"Good," Bartholomew said, stepping closer and smiling at her. "Because, frankly, you're hanging by a thread."

They both turned at the sound of the brief knock on the door-frame. The dark-haired man who entered wore a plain blue suit, a young business man who'd consented to hold the angel, Talis.

"What?" Bartholomew bit out.

"Asriel did locate Castiel," Talis said uncertainly, his gaze flicking from Iskael to Bartholomew. "However, it seems that Castiel was somehow able to kill him."

"What?" The angel repeated, voice rising.

Iskael looked at him. "We know he killed Hael, Bartholomew – and every angel assigned to finding him has been told that he's very dangerous –"

"No." Bartholomew stared at her. "_I'm_ very dangerous, Iskael." He looked at her, the pale blue eyes of his vessel glittering in the lights of the study. "Now, you will find Castiel and you will destroy him. Do you understand?"

"That-that may not be possible, sir," Talis said apologetically.

"I'm getting a little tired of you," Bartholomew snapped, looking at him. "What now is the problem you cannot solve?"

"Castiel has vanished, sir," Talis said, looking at the floor. "We cannot track him. He has found a way to ward himself."

Bartholomew's lips thinned out until his mouth appeared to be a mere slit. He was tempted, severely tempted, to disintegrate both angels standing in front of him, his hands closing into fists by his sides as he suppressed that temptation. Reducing his numbers would not help him find the angel responsible for this mess. Nor would it help him if he had to train another second-in-command in the midst of this operation.

"Bring me a fresh heart," he ground out through mostly closed lips. "Now."

Iskael nodded and backed away to the door, Talis following on her heels.

Castiel had to be found, the parameters of the closing of Heaven understood before further action could be undertaken. It was the highest priority, overriding even his need for every lost and confused angel to be enclosed in a suitable vessel. The divine plane was impervious to any form of direct attack. He couldn't make a plan to get back home without knowing what the hell had happened.

They were getting set up here, under the guise of the Reverend's rising success. The intel he'd already picked up suggested that time was not going to be on their side here on the earthly plane, however. The factions were gathering their troops as well, and not one of the so-called leaders would understand that they had a common goal, a common enemy, preferring to act out their passions to the detriment of all.

Iskael's expression as she came back in was a study in distaste, he decided, watching her walk toward him, her hands gingerly clasped about a loosely wrapped object that left a trail of red droplets across the floor. He thought of explaining that fine sensibilities and squeamishness were not appropriate in the middle of a building war, but vetoed the impulse. Perhaps she would learn for herself that hard times demanded hard action and angels were not the only ones who could track the frequencies of angels, the acrid scent of demons or the souls of humans.

Bartholomew looked at the man sitting on the other side of the desk warily. Black-haired and black-eyed, there was a sense of menace around him, worn casually like a translucent dark shroud. "Long time no see, Varjú," he said, leaning back a little in his chair.

"And how the mighty have fallen," the Crow replied, his teeth flashing white against the swarthiness of his skin as he glanced around the room and back to the angel, the grin widening a touch as he saw Bartholomew's eyes narrow. "I'm currently operating under the pseudonym of Maurice, by the way. What do you want, Bartholomew?"

"How many others can you get for this job?"

"Depends on the job," Varjú said, lifting one shoulder in a slight shrug. "You are looking for the angel, yes?"

"Castiel." Bartholomew tossed the name out. "Yes."

"Do you have anything to go on?" the Crow asked.

"Last known location was Indiana," the angel said, his gaze cutting to the woman standing by the window. "But he's long gone from there. You're best chance is to find the Winchesters. They'll lead you to him."

Varjú laughed. "That's my best chance? I'll take it on advisement."

"How many … _Maurice_?"

"Enough." He looked at the angel, the laughter dying out of his face. "This one will cost you."

"Of course."

"You no longer have the power of the souls to bargain with, Bartholomew," Varjú warned him softly. "It will be something else."

"Whatever it takes," the angel grated at him, leaning across the desk. "Just find him and report in. No killing. We'll take it from there."

The Crow's eyes narrowed very slightly as he considered the creature sitting opposite him. Since they'd fallen, every entity on every plane had heard them, broadcasting their loss and rage and fears across the planet. He would find the angel they were looking for and then re-negotiate. It definitely paid well to live in interesting times.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lafayette, Indiana<strong>_

Dean and Sam followed the detective through the open plan office, stopping at desk in the middle.

"This is his stuff, help yourselves." The detective picked up the evidence bags and handed them over.

"He didn't have any connections to Lafayette?" Sam asked, opening the first.

"None we can find," the detective said, with a shrug. "I got a body in the morgue."

"No problem, we'll find our way out," Dean said distractedly, looking through the vic's personal effects and picking up the cell. "Thanks."

Sam glanced over his shoulder at the retreating detective. "Anything?"

"Nothing weird," Dean said, skipping through it. "Crappy music, lotta podcasts … all the same one."

"Reverend Buddy Boyle's Going for Glory Hour," he elaborated as he read through the titles, brows rising.

"He was religious," Sam offered, looking at the small, well-worn bible sitting with the wallet and keys on the desk.

Dean picked one of the casts and opened it, moving around and holding the phone so that his brother could see the video.

"_Join me in an evening of Glory, friends_," the Reverend said on the screen.

Feeling his stomach curling up a little, Dean's nose wrinkled as the Reverend continued to spout his messages of faith. He fast-forwarded the hour-long video, stopping near the end.

"_So remember, when angels come a'knockin', let 'em on in!"_

"Let 'em on in?" Sam repeated, brow furrowing as he looked at Dean's sceptical expression. "They're using this guy to find vessels."

"Looks like," Dean agreed, his tone sour. "It's a willing audience," he added, putting the phone back in the bag. "They're all religious types, like our pharmacist here. Buddy Boyle's telling them to let the angels take them over."

"And some of them aren't making it," Sam said acerbically.

"How big a reach does this Boyle guy have?" Dean asked, looking at the computer in front of Sam.

Opening the search field, Sam typed quickly. Hundreds of hits were returned under Boyle's name and he clicked on the first statistical count. The screen returned showed a map of the world, with red circles covering most of the countries.

"Pretty much the entire planet," Sam said softly, looking from country to country.

* * *

><p>Dean looked around at the people under the shelter of the overpasses, wondering how the hell Cas had survived to get this far.<p>

"We're just looking for some information, okay?" Dean said to the three watching him with the hair-trigger wariness of rabbits staring at a wolf. "We're not cops, I mean, do we look like cops?"

None of the three looked at him, their gazes shifting toward each other, very slight nods indicating a consensus between them.

"Well, we're not," Dean said, his voice dropping in frustration. "We just need to find a friend who's in a deep –"

"Look, he might've been here the night that guy was killed," Sam interjected, looking at them.

_Perfect_, Dean thought, turning away. _Raise a murder and then expect them not to think we're cops_.

"Uh, were any of you here then?"

"Maybe."

Sam looked up at the dark-haired man who came down the steps behind the three others. Light-coloured eyes were vivid in the man's face, narrowed a little as he looked at them.

"Uh, okay," Dean said, turning back. "He's got dark hair, blue eyes … uh, a little out of it?"

The man looked at him carefully, clearly waiting for more. Dean grimaced a little, trying to remember what else he could tell the guy about Cas. He wasn't that distinguished, he wanted to say. Just a guy, who sold ads on radio and had had a family he'd loved, and had given up everything to be a vessel for an angel of the Lord.

"He may've called himself Clarence?" Sam asked, and the man nodded, mouth twisting into a slight smile.

"Clarence, yeah."

"You two talk?" Sam glanced at his brother and back to the man.

"Not much," he said, shrugging.

"And … uh?" Dean prompted helplessly, unable to think of a single fucking leading question that would get them the answers they needed.

"I think he was on the run," the man said, turning to him.

"Did you see him with the vic – uh, victim?" Sam looked at him.

"Nah," he said, the same slight shrug at the idea.

"Okay," Dean said, wondering if Sam would agree to him grabbing this guy and strapping him down somewhere. It was like talking to Rainman, he thought in irritation, without exactly the right question they were getting nowhere fast. "And then?"

"He went off to sleep in another part of the resort," the guy said, turning from them and walking away.

"Where?" Dean followed him.

"He's not there now."

"Where'd he go?" Sam called out, lengthening his stride as the man stopped by a dumpster.

"I saw him running under the bridge," he said, looking from Sam to Dean.

"You gonna pay us for all this teeth-pulling?" Dean asked exasperatedly. "Where was he headed?"

"Flagged at truck heading north," the man said after a moment. "Detroit, probably."

"Why Detroit?" Sam flicked a glance at his brother.

"Truck was marked 'Motor City Meats'."

"Thanks," Dean said, ducking his head as he watched the guy head back to the others. "Question."

"Yeah? Just one?"

"Why is he still heading east?" Dean ignored the comment. "I mean, he knows the bunker's in Kansas, right?"

"Does he?" Sam looked at the bridge. The highway was behind it.

"He was there for a week, man," Dean argued, following his gaze. "He went grocery shopping."

"Yeah," Sam acknowledged, not seeing that it made that much difference. "Maybe he didn't want to bring the angels following him down on us?"

He saw Dean scowl and realised that his brother had already thought of that, had been looking for another answer.

"Detroit's a big town," he said, running a hand through his hair. "How're we going to find him there?"

"No clue," Dean said, turning around abruptly and heading back to the car. "We'll figure it out."

_Worst case_, he thought, slowing as he waited for Sam to catch up, the two of them opening the doors together, _there was always Plan B_. Sliding into the driver's seat and turning the key, he realised that the idea had come easier this time. A flush of shame heated him and he hit the accelerator hard, the tyres spitting out a rooster tail of gravel and fish-tailing as he drove toward the highway.

Sam glanced at him, seeing the tension knotting up Dean's shoulders as they pulled away. He didn't think Dean had any idea of how they were going to find the angel.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Toledo, Ohio<strong>_

The markings on his side ached and itched alternatively, and Cas clenched his hands into fists as he stood at the head of the alley, willing himself to ignore the conflicting signals that crackled through his vessel's nervous system.

Several buildings down, the security door opened and one of the kitchen staff of the restaurant emerged, tossing a box of vegetable and fruit leftovers into the trash can next to the doorway. Cas waited until the young man had returned to the restaurant, the door banging shut behind him and he moved down the alley, looking around furtively before he started to search through the peelings and cast-offs for something he could eat.

He'd spent the morning travelling south and west again, wary about remaining in the city where he had, he hoped, vanished from the angels' sight. The first car to stop for him had been driven by two young men who were heading for Monroe, they'd said. The stereo had blasted the entire way to the town and he'd been reeling when they'd let him out on the highway off ramp. He'd walked for several miles before a van had stopped, the driver a tough-looking woman in a t-shirt and jeans who'd told him she was on her way to Cincinnati, and had let him out in a large city close to the lake. He thought it was far enough away from Detroit to be safe, and he'd needed to eat, to find someplace to rest.

Watching humanity had not been the same as being immersed in it, he'd realised, standing on a busy street when she'd dropped him off mid-town. Everywhere he'd looked, people were walking, talking, in every language and in a seemingly infinite variety of colour, shape, dress and form. They'd closed around him, the press of their bodies exuding heat and smell and a continuous pressure on him, making him shift his feet and finally back away, finding a quiet side street away from the noise of the traffic and the crowds.

He'd found the small church a block away and had entered it, looking simply for a place where he could think, where he could feel himself again.

He hadn't noticed the woman kneeling before the altar, and he'd tried not to listen to her desperate soft pleas. He'd wanted to tell her that his Father was no longer listening, but he'd thought it wouldn't help. He'd wanted to tell her that prayer on behalf of another, born from despair and the prospect of loss had never had much of an impact, even when Heaven had been working correctly. Destiny and Fate spun and wove and cut the lines of all without much interference and the only prayers that were truly answered were those that asked for strength, for compassion and understanding, for the fortitude to carry on, no matter what came.

Watching her leave the church, he'd wondered at her faith. Predicated on hope, he supposed, hope that someone was watching over them, someone cared enough about them to shepherd them toward a better life. That was the biggest lie of all. Metatron sat in Heaven alone, waiting for the fireworks to begin.

He shook the thoughts off, picking out an apple from the refuse in the can, and wiping it along his shirt front.

Behind him, a shoe scraped on the rough asphalt and he spun around, dropping the apple. "I'm not stealing," he blurted out defensively.

The small redhead looking at him smiled, her eyes crinkling in a friendly fashion as she shook her head. "And I'm not a cop," she assured him.

He looked at her more carefully, noticing that her clothing, although clean and pressed, was still simple and low-quality, that her skin was very fair, her eyes a warm, golden brown.

"It's a shame, isn't it?" he said, looking at the trash cans beside him. "That so much is wasted when so many are hungry?"

"Peanut butter and jelly?" the woman asked him, reaching into her purse and drawing out a wrapped sandwich as she walked toward him. "It's pretty good."

"No. I can't take your food," Castiel said, looking at the sandwich briefly.

"You're not taking it," she countered gently, her smile widening a little. "I'm giving it to you."

She held out it out and he stared at her, wondering at this kindness in the midst of the city that hadn't seemed to even notice him. He could sense no motive from her and he stood there unmoving.

"Look," she said firmly, stepping closer and reaching for his hand, putting the sandwich into it. "I've had hard times myself."

She nodded as she felt his fingers close around it, and turned away, walking to the security door of the restaurant and letting herself in.

"Thank you," Cas said softly and she smiled again as she slipped inside.

He unwrapped the sandwich, and took a bite, the thick, rich nut paste and the sharper, sweeter taste of the boiled fruit blending together on his tongue like ambrosia.

When the last of the crumbs had gone, and he'd licked the stray smears of peanut butter from his fingers, he realised he didn't know what to do. He was hidden, so moving on wasn't such a priority. He was no longer hungry and he had no idea of where in the city he could go to find shelter for the night, or money, or anything else he needed.

_Call Dean._

The thought was insistent and he pushed it away with difficulty. Knowing now how vehemently he was being hunted, he couldn't put them in danger. Even warded, they might be found through him and he'd brought enough trouble down on them.

He shivered suddenly as a cold breeze blew down the alley, looking around and backing into the doorway behind him for some shelter.

On the rooftop above the alley, the raven watched the man below back into the doorway and sit on the stoop. Varjú had been clear about the assignment. Find and report. It stepped from the parapet edge and floated down to the narrow road on the breeze. The man seemed far less dangerous than had been reported, it thought, watching him as it walked closer. No Grace and no soul. No power of any kind. Nevertheless, he had, from all accounts, been responsible for many things, far-reaching things that no angel should've been capable of. It hopped onto the edge of a trash can, invisible to everything but the souls of the dying and pondered how best to take the non-human non-angel unawares.


	6. Chapter 6 A Thousand Little Deaths

**Chapter 6 A Thousand Little Deaths**

* * *

><p><em><strong>Detroit, Michigan<strong>_

Dean looked at the cross-street he'd just come up and pulled over, feeling Sam's startled glance swivel around to him. The headlights lit up the buildings to either side of them, showing an untidy heap of trash cans by one, the garbage overflowing them and spilling over the street.

"Anything come up?" he asked his brother, rubbing a hand over his eyes.

"No, not yet," Sam said, adjusting the laptop on his knees and shooting another glance at him.

Dean didn't have to have it spelled out for him. Maybe Cas hadn't made it this far. Maybe the angels hunting him hadn't. Maybe it was a wild-goose chase and he was spinning his wheels and wasting gas for no reason at all.

He couldn't just sit around and do nothing, he thought tiredly.

"We should find a place to crash, man," Sam said softly. "Set up the scanner and I'll plug into the newsfeeds and we can get some food and sleep."

He wanted to argue the logic of that, but there wasn't a argument to be made. Keeping Sam from eating or resting wasn't exactly helping the situation either.

The black car reversed back up the street and he turned the rear into a driveway, making the turn to head back to the last motel he'd seen, four blocks away.

He could not get his thoughts of the angel straight, no matter what he did, he thought morosely. He hadn't fully forgiven Cas when they'd been thrown into Purgatory together, and in that dimension of flat light and hunger and death, there'd been no time to get it sorted. He'd needed the angel, his one link to his real life, had needed to be able to take him topside and Cas had blown that out of the water. When they'd seen him again, he'd been under Heaven's control and had betrayed them again, not willingly, he admitted, but it hadn't changed the way it'd felt.

And the angel had gotten bent and gone off on a world-saving mission on his own … _again_ … leaving him with a broken brother and a skyful of falling angels.

Deliberately loosening his fingers from their welded-on grip on the car's steering wheel, he realised with a sinking feeling that Cas was repeating the mistakes of the past over and over.

He pulled over in front of the motel's office and Sam got out, getting them a room and waving a hand toward the end of the building as he got back in again. He drove the car to the corresponding parking slot in front of their room's door and got out, opening the trunk, retrieving their gear automatically and following his brother inside.

"I'll grab some food," he said, looking around the room without the slightest interest. It was just the latest in a long, long line. "Preferences?"

"Anything not covered in grease and salt," Sam murmured distractedly, pulling out his laptop and the police scanner and sitting down at the table.

"Right."

Turning around, Dean went back to the car and got in. He felt like Chinese and pulled out his phone, picking up the wireless from the motel as he searched the close neighbourhoods for a place that did take-out. There were three, in a three-block radius and he started the engine and reversed out, following the directions.

Of all the people who had come and gone in his life, Cas was the only left who knew, he thought uneasily. Sam knew a lot but he hadn't been able to tell him everything, hadn't been able to face seeing his brother's reactions to the full truth. The angel had been there. And had pulled him out anyway. And he didn't have to talk about it. Cas just knew.

He pulled over at the kerb outside the restaurant and got out, walking slowly inside and looking at the menu without seeing it really, ordering and paying. It'd be twenty minutes and he nodded and walked back out.

Something in him froze up and stalled at the thought of telling anyone about his life, the thought of being forced to describe it in words. He didn't think he would ever be able to do that and he knew it was why he needed the angel. Cas didn't have to be told.

_Everything isn't your responsibility. Getting me out of Purgatory wasn't your responsibility._

He flinched back against the side of the car as that memory returned, Cas' face strained, his voice firm. It'd been a shock, to realise that his memories of what'd happened down there hadn't been accurate. And realising that maybe a lot of his other memories weren't entirely accurate either.

Cas had seen him, down in Hell. He didn't remember being lifted from the pit, but he knew the angel remembered, remembered it all.

_What's the matter? You don't think you deserve to be saved?_

He saw again, clearly in his mind's eye, the angel's face as he'd said that, earnestly questioning the emotions Cas'd been able to feel emanating from him, genuinely puzzled by him. He hadn't been able to answer the question, not then, not later. Not out loud.

_God has work for you._

Dragging in a deep breath, Dean folded his arms tightly across his chest, looking down at the cracked pavement under his feet. That'd been the worst of it, that knowledge that more was expected of him, and of course he'd taken it to mean that whatever he was supposed to do was his end of a deal, the deal to bring him out of the flames.

He didn't think he'd held up his end all that well.

Inside the restaurant, the girl at the counter waved at him and he nodded, walking back inside and picking up the two bags of food. The rich combination of scents hit him as he put them in the car, his stomach growling insistently.

Cas was the only one he could ask, he realised uncomfortably. The only one who knew it all. And he couldn't trust the sonofabitch angel – now human – but he had to, once again he had to try and patch up the trust and somehow make it work or he was never going to be able to get the mess in his head straight.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Toledo, Ohio<strong>_

Rain pounded the alley and streamed from the overflowing gutters that lined the buildings roofs, pouring in sheets onto the shiny, black asphalt. In the doorway, Cas huddled, the hood of his jacket pulled over his head, the outer coat drawn tightly around him. He'd never noticed how quickly the rain penetrated unprotected clothing before, soaking through to his skin and layering him in a cold that his body was having a hard time counteracting.

To his right, the restaurant door banged open and he heard light footsteps on the road, coming toward him. He squinted through the droplets that were hitting his face, belatedly recognising the young woman, dry under a wide umbrella, as she passed by him then stopped abruptly.

She turned around and looked back at him, her mouth curving up in a smile that seemed both sympathetic and rueful. He wasn't sure how to interpret the expression.

"Are you doing penance for something?" she asked him, taking a few steps back toward him.

His eyes widened in surprise at the question and her mouth twisted deprecatingly.

"Sorry, I didn't mean – you just seem determined to suffer," she said, gesturing at the rain that drummed on the thin plastic of her umbrella.

He looked away. "Perhaps I am," he admitted tiredly.

"Whatever it was you did, it doesn't deserve dying alone with pneumonia, does it?" she asked him, reaching her out hand.

He looked at the outstretched hand longingly. He needed help from someone, he realised unhappily. He wasn't surviving well on his own.

"I've got a sofa that's not too uncomfortable to sleep on," she said, taking another step closer. "And the place is warm and dry. Come on."

He took her hand and let her pull him to his feet, ducking under the umbrella as she lifted it higher. Wiping his face free of the water with one hand, he looked down at her.

"Why are you helping me?"

"I don't know," she said with a disarming honesty, shifting the umbrella to her right hand and keeping it held high. "Maybe, sometimes, you have to do something that feels right, even if it's a risk."

He digested that as she led him down the alley and they turned onto the street. She was right, he thought, Dean's voice yelling in his memories, his friend's face twisted up with anger at all the times he'd tried to convince him that what he was doing was not the right thing to do. He thought he'd learned from the man, but the truth was, he hadn't, not really.

"You're very kind."

"Not really," she said cheerfully, steering him around the next corner and curling her hand around his arm as she stepped out onto the street. "I'm like everyone else, I guess. Some days are better than others."

* * *

><p>The apartment building was a modern brick, tucked in between two older brownstones and she opened the door, pushing him through it as she stepped in after him and closed her umbrella. Cas was intensely aware of the water dripping from his clothes onto the linoleum floor, the quiet plink-plinks embarrassingly loud in the silence of the empty hall.<p>

"I'm on four, so it's a few stairs," she told him, apparently not noticing that he was leaking all over the hall. Turning for the straight, steep staircase to one side of the hall, she added with a grin, "Gives me my daily cardio workout."

He followed her up, wondering if he should be wringing the water out of his clothes here or waiting until he got inside her home. Both options seemed equally impolite.

Turning right on the fourth landing, she led the way to a plain white door, and unlocked it, pushing it wide and hitting the lightswitch as she dropped her purse on a chair and turned around. Walking inside, Cas looked around the simple room. It was painted in whites and neutrals, clean and as she'd promised, warm and dry.

"It's beautiful," he said, feeling the tension of the last twenty-four hours seeping out of him. Outside, thunder rumbled distantly and he could hear the rain, drumming against the panes of the windows. Being inside, in here, out of it … it felt … soothing, he thought. Shelter. Sanctuary. A place to rest.

The young woman closed the door, dropping the wet umbrella on the floor beside it.

"If you say so," she said, a little uncertainly. Her gaze moved rapidly around the room and she hurried past him to tidy it up. "So you know, I don't usually bring home strange men."

He watched her gather up a pile of clothing from the sofa's end and deposit it on a table in the corner, seeing her discomfort. "Am I … strange?"

"I mean … men I don't know," she clarified gently as she turned on the lamp and retrieved another piece of clothing from the armchair, turning to look at him. "You look like you've been to hell and back."

"A few times," Cas admitted. He pulled off his wet and clammy jackets awkwardly, setting them on a stool by the kitchen counter.

"April, by the way," she said, opening a drawer and pulling out a dry towel. "April Kelly."

"Castiel," he told her as she passed him the towel.

"One name?"

"Like God," Cas agreed disparagingly.

April smiled at him, a dimple appearing in one cheek. "Or Cher," she suggested lightly.

She caught sight of his arm, the cloth of his sleeve a dull red. "Um, do you know that your shirt is soaked in blood?"

Cas looked down at the wound, suddenly realising that he was presenting a worse and worse impression to the woman in front of him. Homeless. Eating out of trash cans. Sitting alone in the rain, and with what was clearly a knife-wound. _Classy_, he heard Dean's derisive voice in his head, _with a capital 'K'_.

"A hot shower, something solid to eat, and then we'll look at that," April said, dragging his attention back. "Alright?"

"All right."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Detroit, Michigan<strong>_

"I can't sit here," Dean said abruptly, getting up from the chair and walking around the table. "I'm going – going to get something else to eat."

Sam looked up at him, wondering if that was the current euphemism for something to drink. He nodded, glancing back at the screen as he got up. "I'll come with, I could use the fresh air."

He ignored Dean's narrowed look as he picked his jacket from the back of the chair and pulled it on. His brother didn't say anything, just reached for the keys and opened the door.

The convenience store was two blocks down, past a couple of heavily-graffitied and seemingly empty warehouses and they walked there in silence, the night noises of the city a droning background.

"We've checked everything," Dean said when they reached the store, pulling the door open with unnecessary force. "Homeless shelters, soup kitchens, railway crossings …"

"He's spent the last few days literally with angels on his tail, Dean," Sam argued mildly as he followed him inside. "He might be paranoid enough to keep moving, and it's a big town."

"Yeah."

"You want to try something else?" Sam asked, picking out an apple and pear from the minimal selection of fruit the store carried. He watched Dean go to the fridge, pull out a six-pack and stop by the glass counter, his gaze fixed on the pre-packaged baked goods.

"You feel that?" Dean asked in a low voice as he looked at the selection. He picked up a container and tucked it on top of the beers.

"Yeah," Sam said, keeping his eyes on the counter as the attendant came up to serve them.

"Take him through the alley?"

"Yeah, I think so. The buildings looked empty," Sam agreed, pulling out his wallet as the total was rung up on the register. The attendant pulled out a plastic bag and packed their purchases into it and they turned for the door.

Sam pulled out the container holding his brother's slice of pie and looked at it as he pushed out through the door. "Look at all these chemicals! Do you even read the label?"

"I read 'pie'," Dean said, taking the container and the bag from him. "The rest is blah, blah, blah. Listen, tomorrow, we should see the cops, see if anything came in over the wire tonight."

"Right," Sam agreed. "I was thinking we should check the hospitals as well, and the morgues."

"I'll take the cops, you can handle the body details," Dean said, his tone frosty.

Walking down the street, they turned into the alley, hearing the faint clock of boots on the asphalt behind them. Dean dropped the bag and pulled out the angel sword, holding it flush to his flank as he waited.

The footsteps slowed as they reached the mouth of the alley, and the brothers waited in the shadow of the dumpster, watching as the man who'd been following them since Lafayette came into view.

Sam shot out, grabbing his arm at the wrist and shoulder, pivoting smoothly and swinging him into the brick wall of the building. Dean added his weight to his brother's and the cold press of the angel blade against the man's throat stifled the man's groan as he hit the wall.

"Who are you?!" Sam yelled in the man's face.

"Why're you trailing us?" Dean snapped at him, pushing the blade of the sword hard enough into the man's skin to draw a thin line of blood against its edge.

Varjú looked from one to the other then down as Sam snapped a pair of cuffs around his wrists, the etched sigils clearly visible in the metal.

"Little more privacy," Sam said to Dean, yanking the man forward by the chain. Dean nodded and walked to the steel side door of the empty warehouse, pulling a slim leather case from his jacket pocket. A moment later, the locks clicked open and he pushed the door wide, moving inside and closing the door behind Sam and the man he was holding.

"Loading dock?" Sam asked, gesturing to the left.

"Sounds about right," Dean agreed, moving forward to take point.

* * *

><p>Varjú tensed against the blade as the tip slid through his skin again. He knew of the Winchesters, almost every psychopomp did. Resurrectionists. Protected somehow by powers greater even than the angels or demons. His teeth clenched together as Dean stepped forward and brought the sword point down over his chest against, a brief flare of light disappearing and leaving another bloodied wound.<p>

"So, Maurice," Dean said conversationally as he turned away from the Crow. "The angels were tracking just fine on their own till now. Why'd they sic you on Cas?"

"He warded himself," Varjú said immediately. He wasn't prepared to suffer for Bartholomew.

"Naomi hire you?"

Tipping his head back, the Crow laughed at the thought. "Oh, you boys are really out of the loop," he said, looking from Sam to Dean. "Naomi's dead, resting in pieces."

"So … who's top dog now?" Sam asked him.

Dean's eyes narrowed as the Crow looked away. "Answer him!"

"Her protégé," Varjú said quickly when the older Winchester took a couple of steps toward him. "Name of Bartholomew. He's an up-and-comer."

Sam glanced at Dean, one brow raised. "He figured that the quickest to find Cas was to follow us?"

"This Bartholomew," Dean said, his voice quiet. "He organising the angels?"

"I don't know what he's doing," Varjú said, his head dropping forward. Dean stepped closer, dragging the sword tip down through the Crow's flesh, his face hardening as the scream bubbled out of Varjú, trailing off into a deep groan. "That's all I know!"

Sam looked at his brother's face, recognising the stillness in him, his heart giving a slight double-beat.

Taking another step closer, Dean lifted the point of the blade and pressed it lightly against the underside of the Crow's jaw. Varjú lifted his head, looking into the cold green eyes studying him.

"You can kill me," he said, his gaze cutting fleetingly to Sam and returning to the man in front of him. "It doesn't matter. Bartholomew wanted him found and if not by me, there are others out there who will."

Dean's fingers closed hard around the haft as he took that in. "How many?"

"More than you could hunt down or even find," Varjú said tiredly, straining to keep his chin high enough above the point of the sword. "Do what you want."

Sam watched his brother's expression flatten out, felt his stomach dip as he heard the lack of anything in Dean's voice.

"Sure."

The sword slid in under the jaw and up through the mouth, light brightening and flooding out of the Crow as Dean pushed it deeper, driving it hard into the psychopomp's brain.

Turning away, Sam swallowed. He hadn't seen Dean look like since he'd gotten out of Purgatory, not that precise emotionless mask, that cold nothingness that filled his brother's eyes, too clearly visible in the white light that bled colour from everything it touched.

"Dean …" Sam said as his brother pulled the sword from the Crow's head when the light had died.

"We got anything on tracking the guides in the order?" Dean ignored the question in Sam's voice as he turned away from the body. "Anything other the fresh heart thing?"

"I don't know," Sam said, watching him walk to the door. "Dean, we can't leave this here, like this."

Turning back, Dean nodded, wiping off the angel blade absently. "Yeah, gotta get our cuffs back."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Toledo, Ohio<strong>_

April dropped the torn-off strip of cloth that had been wrapped around Cas' arm into the trash basket beside her. She looked over the clean cut and picked up a small tube of antiseptic powder. "You're lucky this didn't get infected."

Cas watched as she squirted the powder into the wound. Aside from the puffs of air on the open flesh, there was no sensation, no increase in the pain. He lifted his gaze to her face, wondering at her care of him. The shower had been hot and strong, the soap sending the grime that had coated him like a second skin down the drain at his feet. His hair felt clean and no longer itchy or filled with dust. He'd remembered the razors he'd bought for Dean and Sam back at the bunker and had looked around for one, rummaging self-consciously through the cupboards in the bathroom, but he hadn't seen anything that'd looked similar. The growth of hair along his jawline itched a little.

Picking up the clean gauze pad, April taped it onto his skin, covering the wound completely. She looked up, catching his gaze and reached forward to take the roll of bandage from the pile she'd placed on the sofa, unrolling it and binding it around his arm carefully.

"Tell me if this feels too tight," she said, her voice soft. He nodded uncomfortably. She had changed from her work clothes and the soft denim that hugged her legs and hips, the thin shirt that showed the curves of her body, reminded him of another woman's body, the reactions that had created in him twitching in his nervous system now.

"It's fine," he said, looking back at the white cloth that was being wound over his arm.

"What happened to the guy who attacked you?" she asked him, and he looked away, ignoring the faintly relieved feeling at having something else to think about.

"Oh, I stabbed him," he told her. Her expression suggested that it had not been the correct thing to say. "He exploded," he added, wondering if that would help.

"Funny," April said, taking a piece of tape and wrapping it around the bandage to secure it. "You don't look like the knife-fight type. Or the homeless type, actually."

Cas looked down at his hands, loosely curled against the towel wrapped around him. "Yes, well, I guess I trusted the wrong person."

"Bad investment advice?"

"No," Cas said, pulling in a deep breath. "Vanity."

He felt her eyes lift to him as she gathered up the wrappings from the dressings.

"I thought I was more important – more effective – than I am," he continued slowly, his voice deepening as he admitted it finally, out loud. "I thought I could … fix … everything. And now, all I can do is keep running."

He turned to look at her when she didn't respond. She was looking at the bandage, her lip caught between her teeth.

"All done," she said, seeming to become aware of his gaze. "How does it feel?"

"Good," he told her honestly, lifting his arm and closing his hand, the muscles leaping smoothly under the skin. "Much better. It's a good field dressing."

She smiled, ducking her head. "You like it? It's my first."

He watched her as she got up from the sofa, tipping the wrappings into the trash and picking up the basket, carrying it back to the corner.

"What can I tempt you with?" she asked over her shoulder as she opened the fridge door. "We've got … um … chicken salad?"

"That would be fine," he said, wondering what it would taste like. Food came in many different varieties and he'd tried only a few. His memories of human life, the time he'd spent with Alice, were distant now. His once-ordered angel mind had been messed with too many times for them to remain clear.

"Your clothes should be dry in an hour," April said, pulling out the cold roast chicken and vegetables and setting them on the counter.

He nodded. "You live here, alone?"

"Yeah, the rent's cheap and it's not far to work," she told him, taking a sharp knife from the block and slicing up onions and tomatoes, carrots and peppers and tossing them into the bowl.

"Are you lonely?"

He saw the knife in her hand hesitate over the cooked white meat on the chopping board. "I'm sorry, I did not mean to pry –"

"No," she said quickly, finishing the slicing and putting the pieces into the bowl. "It's a valid question. Uh…" She looked over to him, her gaze cutting back to the food. "Sometimes, sure. Who isn't?"

"I find it strange that you have no one here," Cas told her, brows drawn together. "You are a good person."

The slightly derisive smile surprised him. "Yeah, well, being a good person isn't quite the drawcard it used to be."

He thought of the man he'd encountered in Lafayette, suspicious and ready for violence even without provocation. The world had changed in ways he hadn't realised, without him noticing it. People were still people but something had gone from them, not all of them, not yet, he thought uneasily, something that he'd seen in the man who'd given him food, in the eyes of the woman who was standing a few feet away. He had not seen that in the empty eyes of the crowds who'd surrounded him on the streets.

April tossed the salad and brought the bowl to the low table in front of the sofa, setting it down and returning to the small kitchen to get two dishes. Leaning slightly closer to the bowl, Cas closed his eyes and breathed in, the slightly sweet scent rising from the food filling his mouth with saliva.

"Don't stand on manners," she told him, serving a generous portion onto his plate. "There's plenty."

"Thank you," he muttered, picking up the fork and stabbing a piece of chicken, tomato and carrot in a single thrust. He lifted it to his mouth, his eyes closing involuntarily as the tastes hit his tongue.

They ate quickly, Cas having no choice in that decision at all. He'd overlooked the importance of all the physiological needs of his vessel, he realised as he chewed the last piece of chicken and swallowed it. Hadn't taken into account how important – and demanding – those needs were. He remembered eating burger after burger when Famine had laid his touch on him, the craving undeniable and excruciating. It wasn't so bad now, but he still needed to be aware that Jimmy's body, _his_ body, was not going to be ignored as he'd been able to in the past.

April was watching him and he looked at her, marvelling a little at the way the lamp-light behind her had turned her hair to a shade of red he'd only ever seen in the embers of a dying fire.

"It's all new to me," he said, setting the plate down on the table when it was clean. "Hunger. Cold. Pain." He looked away, his gaze dropping to the floor as the truth of that hit home with a sadness that seemed to rise up and fill him. He would never again be an angel. It was hard to accept. "This feeling … of being all alone."

He felt her hand curve gently over his shoulder. "You're not alone tonight," she said softly.

Looking around at her, he felt a sharp jolt through his nervous system, as if he'd mistakenly touch a live electric wire. She looked straight into his eyes and the expression he saw in hers was gentle and caring. Had anyone on earth looked at him like that, he wondered a little distractedly. Had anyone in Heaven?

_You _have_ been with women before. Right? Or an angel, at least?_ His friend's voice echoed distantly in his mind. Not an angel. But yes, he'd been with women. Jimmy had and he had been through his vessels memories once or twice. And he had lived with Alice for nearly six months before the demons had come.

The sensations filling him were familiar, yet they were not, they felt more powerful, more … immediate than what lay in his memories. Closer to what he'd felt with … Meg.

In between them, something stretched out, filled with the accelerating pounding of his heart as he saw her pupils dilate a little. Filled with the promise of not being … not _feeling_ … so completely alone …with the promise of a … _connection_ … with someone else.

April moved a little closer to him and he felt himself move toward her, as if drawn by a power he couldn't see, could only feel, staring into her eyes as her breath ghosted across his lips.

Her mouth was soft, pressed against his and he felt another jolt, lower, deeper, heat flushing through him as she drew back slightly and he closed the distance again, his eyelids closing tightly when her hands slid over the sensitive skin of his neck, curling into his hair.

He couldn't breathe and he couldn't stop and think about that. Under his fingers, her skin was warm and silken, and every touch brought another fluxing sheet of lightning that crackled and roared along the paths of his nerves, triggering a deeper need than food or sleep, a wilder need than he'd remembered.

She drew away and he followed her, not wanting those feelings to stop, not now, not ever.

"The sofa, opens up," she said, gesturing to the other end.

Cas had no idea of what she was talking about but the gesture was clear enough. He swallowed hard and moved back, watching as she pushed the low table aside, and released the mechanism. He watched in some astonishment as the sofa unfolded itself, revealing sheets covering a wide mattress. He had no intention of sleeping but the thought gradually filtered through that they would have more room, be more comfortable on a wider base than the narrow sofa.

"Come here," she said, dropping her light sweater on the floor and lifting her shirt above her head. He crawled over the mattress, the towel that had covered him falling away.

Looking at her in the glow of the lamp, her skin lit up in shades of cream and pale rose, he felt his breath catch again, beating like a trapped bird in his chest. _And the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose._ The passage tumbled through his mind and he suddenly understood what had driven the Irin, his brothers who had Fallen freely and deliberately to become human, long before Lucifer had been defeated on a desert plain and cast into Perdition.

She knelt next to him and he groaned softly as she touched him, a deep shudder shaking him in her arms.

"I don't –" he started to say and she rested her fingertips over his lips, looking into his eyes as she drew him down.

"Sssh …"

Cas felt his hands close into fists when her mouth brushed over his jaw, and trailed down the side of his neck. He wasn't sure how long he would be able to stand it, caresses that were, at once, delicate and demanding, reaching right through him with a tormenting ache that was building inside, his muscles twitching and fluttering helplessly as he felt her breath and her lips and her tongue moving down the length of his body.

* * *

><p>He was dying, he thought incoherently, increasing crescendos of sensation rippling outward through him as April lifted her hips against his and he felt himself plunge deeper. Dying with no thought of wanting anything else.<p>

Abruptly, the soft heat surrounding him began to ripple, staccato shivers that forced a gasp from him even as he half-collapsed on his forearms, his eyes screwed shut at the feelings that richoted from one side of his body to the other, conflagrating his nerves and squeezing him tighter.

"April …"

The summit was reached before he'd even realised he was close and the long muscles of back and thigh contracted sharply, arching him up helplessly as he was lost to the biological imperative of the body, pleasure rolling over and drowning him, the aftershocks hitting him one after the other, reverberating through the woman under him and back again. Her arms closed tightly around him and he dropped a little more, trying to hold his weight off her, barely able to keep his eyes open.

"Castiel."

Her voice was just a breath against his cheek and it sent another deep shudder through him, robbing him of the ability to speak as it dissipated slowly somewhere down around his knees.

This was sex, he thought, moments later as the final temblors shook and left him. There was no doubt in his mind that his Father had created this – this – incendiary reaction as a means of ensuring that the population would, in fact, be fruitful and multiply, but he couldn't believe he'd managed to miss out on the more powerful aspects of the simple biological drive for most of his life. He understood now.

"Castiel?" April said again, a little more loudly. Lifting his head, he looked down at her, a wrenching need to keep touching her filling him. He lowered his head slightly and kissed her parted lips, feeling her legs close more tightly around his hips, her arms pull him closer.

He felt himself slip free and she moved slightly. Rolling off her to the side, he lay on his back, staring bemusedly at the ceiling. With Alice, he remembered warmth and comfort, contentment and a long-lasting gentle satisfaction. None of the thunder and lightning that had just filled him here. Was it possible that it was not the same at all times and with all people? The thought shocked him into stillness.

He felt the mattress dip a little as the woman beside him rolled slightly toward him. "Well, say something," she said, her voice light.

Exhaling, he tried to think of something that could convey what he'd just been through, shaking his head slightly as none came. "There aren't words."

"So …" she said, looking at him a little uncertainly. "That was okay?"

He turned his head to her. "Very much so."

The smile she gave him in return was small and self-conscious and he wondered if it was possible that the experience had been more to his satisfaction than to hers. She had led him through the beginnings, he realised belatedly, and he had been so overwhelmed by what was happening to him that he hadn't really considered what she might've been feeling.

"Um …" he said, clearing his throat. "What I did … that was …um … correct?"

He heard the smile in her voice as she answered. "Very much so."

"Good." The word came out without thought and he felt the not-so-familiar movement of his mouth and cheeks as her laughter forced them into a smile. Mostly of relief.

He looked back at her when the mattress dipped beside him and she rolled onto her elbow, her hand slipping up over his stomach and resting against his chest. The slight touch was inflaming and he wondered distractedly how any male achieved anything when they were close to a woman.

"Castiel, what you said, before," April said quietly, looking down at him. "About what you thought you did wrong, the blame and your guilt … it seems like, you're taking on a heavy load for such a sweet guy?"

He exhaled uncomfortably, looking away from her. "Believe me, I've done a lot of foolish and unwise things …" he stopped, his eyes closing at the utter inadequacy of what he'd just said. "I've done things that I will never be forgiven for, April, things I will never be able to find forgiveness for. I've hurt my family. My friends. I've hurt innocents whom I judged without mercy or pity."

Turning his head, he looked up at her. "I would that I could take those all things back, undo them and set things to right again, but I cannot and I never will be able to."

He saw her brows draw together a little as she took in his words. "You said you had someone, couldn't they help? Maybe undo what you've done?"

Cas thought of Dean and Sam. They would help, if he asked. _When crap like this comes around, we deal with it ... like we always have. What we don't do is we don't go out and make another deal with the Devil!_ He tried to keep the flinch inside at that memory. _Where were you when I needed to hear it?_ he'd asked the man. _I was there_, Dean'd said. _Where were you?_

He wasn't sure that he could ask for help now. Wasn't sure it was a good idea to draw them into the line of fire he knew was aimed at him.

"We're no longer in contact," he said finally, glancing back at her.

"Then what's next for you?"

For a moment, he wanted to confide in her, wanted to lay out his unarticulated ideas and see if she could find wrongness in them, the missing parts that he was sure he didn't see because he lacked a soul. Looking into her eyes, he thought she would understand, even if … even if he told the truth about everything.

He opened his mouth and then closed it again. Even if she did understand, he thought tiredly, he had no right to draw her any further into the disaster area of his life. The memory of Dean's request, in the hospital room after he'd healed Lisa, came back strongly.

He smiled instead, rolling onto his shoulder and sliding his hand up April's thigh and over her hip. "More of this … I hope," he said, smiling slightly at her.

She laughed, low down in her throat and the sound stirred him, her feelings plain in the way her eyes darkened, the tip of her tongue licked lightly around her lips. He rolled further as she sank back, and the kiss seared through him.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Detroit, Michigan<strong>_

Dean pulled over, pulling on the brake as he turned off the engine and stared at the flat sunshine that lit up the almost empty inner-city streetscape in front of him.

"What's up?" Sam asked, looking at his brother's stony profile.

"Chasing our tails all night," Dean ground out. "No Cas! What's up? I'm fried!"

Sam looked away, his exhale gusting out. He'd been expecting this for a while now.

"I think it's time for Plan B," Dean said, his voice dropping as he turned to look at Sam.

Turning his head, Sam's brow wrinkled up as he saw his brother's expression intensify, the cold green eyes boring into his. "I'm not following."

"I'm letting you know," Dean said, staring at Sam, trying to reach past his brother.

Sam blinked in confusion. "O-okay … um … letting me know what?"

"I'm letting – _you – _know," Dean repeated slowly and distinctly and Sam realised he was getting creeped out by the expression on his brother's face.

The angel slipped free and gently wrapped the soul in his care away. Dean watched as Sam's body straightened in the seat, his expression smoothed away under Ezekiel's command.

"What is it, Dean?"

Letting out his breath, Dean suppressed the small shiver that accompanied the change in tone and timbre in Sam's voice every time the angel emerged.

"I need your help."

Ezekiel turned to look at him. "That is … an interesting development," the angel said, his gaze moving away to scan the area. "We have been through this. I cannot be making public appearances."

"No, I understand that and I'm not asking you to walk the red carpet scene, I-I need your help finding Cas," Dean said, shoving down at the knowledge that he'd rather have had his arm torn off than have to keep asking the angel in Sam for help.

"It cannot be done," Ezekiel said bluntly. "He is warded."

"I know that!" Dean said, forcing his impatience back and down. "But maybe you can use your intergalactic, hyper … space, x-ray eyeballs to find someone else."

The angel tilted Sam's head to one side, in a gesture that was almost, but not quite the way his brother might and Dean swallowed his discomfort. "There might be a rotten soul-guide on his ass. Could you find them?"

"I can try," Ezekiel said, closing his eyes. Dean felt a push of … something … not air … but force pass through him and outward from the car and felt his fingers curl up.

Asking for help. Shutting Sam out. None of it sat right with him, but he couldn't think of anything else to do. The order's library might've had all the answers, he thought in rising frustration, but it would take longer than their lifetimes to go through it all and they never had the time to just sit and read. Or think, he acknowledged bitterly.

"There is a Raven in a city not far from here," Ezekiel said, opening his eyes. "There is a human with her but I cannot see his face."

"Cas?"

"I think so." The angel turned to look at him. "The Raven is powerful."

Dean turned on the engine and stared through the windshield. "Where?"

* * *

><p><em><strong>Toledo, Ohio<strong>_

Cas stretched out, feeling the heaviness in his muscles, a looseness he couldn't remember feeling before, ever. A dim, pearly light filtered through the blinds that covered the windows and he realised it must be morning. He looked around the small apartment and over his shoulder at the woman sleeping beside him. Her hair was bright, a red spill over the pillows and he felt a rush of feeling spread through him, not arousal or excitement but a deeper sense of peace, of satiation.

He got up carefully and walked to the bathroom, aware that he could smell them both on his skin. The shower was once again hot and comforting, the water sluicing over him and relaxing the unfamiliar aches in his vessel's body – his body, he corrected himself absently – with a soothing sensation. When he got out, he dried slowly, trying to commit to memory all that he'd learned the last evening. April had washed and dried his clothes, and he found them hanging in the hall next to the bathroom, the shirt clean again. Dressing quickly, he walked into the main room, seeing his jacket folded over the chair, April standing at the kitchen bench, slicing food onto a plate.

"Oh," she said brightly, looking over her shoulder at him. "I washed your stuff, did you find everything okay?"

"As a matter of fact, something is missing," Cas said, feeling the pockets and seams of the jacket uneasily. The sword was no longer there.

"Oh?"

"It was with my jacket," he said, looking around the small room and walking slowly over to her. "It's hard to describe."

"Oh, you mean this?" She turned as he reached her, the tip of the sword pricking him slightly under the jaw as she raised it.

"Sit down, Castiel," she said, stepping toward him. "Slowly and leaving your hands in full view, please."

He backed away from her, felt the seat of the armchair behind his knees and sat down. The sword tip remained pressed against the side of his neck as she looped a thin cord over his wrist, dragging it behind the chair and slipping the other end over his other hand, pulling both loops tight as she straightened.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked, turning to watch her walk away.

April stopped at the counter, picking up a piece of fruit and biting into it. "It's kind of pointless, washing the blood out of your shirt," she mused, looking out the window as the juice of the fruit trickled over her chin. "The kind of thing the real April would've done," she added, turning back to him.

"You know, it's funny, but I miss being her," she added conversationally, putting the fruit down and walking back to the chair. "Very sweet, didn't mind me entering her one bit."

"Why didn't you just attack me straight away?" Cas said, wondering when the Raven had taken over the girl. Before the sandwich? He thrust the thought aside impatiently, watching the woman circle around him. What did it matter _when_ it'd happened?

"Well, my briefing said that you were dangerous. And powerful. And armed," she said, leaning toward him. "Nothing like good sex for confounding the mind and dropping the defences."

"What do you want?"

"Information," she said, looking at him in surprise.

"Who hired you?" he asked her, turning his head away as the point of the sword slipped over the skin of his neck in a macabre echo of what she had done with her mouth the previous night. "I – I assumed that with Naomi gone, things were in chaos."

"New sheriff in town, Castiel," April – the Raven – said to him, drawing the tip over his shirt and slicing the buttons free, one by one. "He hired a bunch of us. And I was the lucky one. And that would be enough questions from you," she continued, leaning back and walking away. "I need information and there are no reasons for you to be coy about the answers."

He heard her stop behind him. "Let's talk about your buddy, Metatron, and what he's been doing lately."

She stepped close the chair and the sword appeared in Cas' peripheral vision, the tip raking across the skin of his stomach as she sliced a long, upwardly curving line in him. The pain was as bright as the sun, the quatrefoil tip opening the flesh wide. He screamed.

"Am I really going to have to gag you?" she asked, frowning as she leaned over the arm of the chair.

"I – I was –"

"Try harder, Castiel," she said, and the tip of the sword gouged a deeper cut down along his ribs to his hip, his cry muffled as she slammed her hand over his mouth.

"He told me I was doing the trials, to close Heaven," he said, when she lifted her hand away. "He trapped me, tore out my Grace, tricked me!"

"So, you really did trust the wrong person," she said, leaning over the back of the chair. "That's what you'd like me to believe?"

She turned abruptly and slashed downward, the sword opening the muscle and blood spilling out.

"What was Metatron's spell? What did he need to work it? What is the purpose of casting the angels out, sending them to this plane?"

"I don't know!"

April swung her hand back, hitting his temple with her fist, weighted with the sword. Cas' head snapped backwards, feeling a fresh trickle of blood as the skin split beneath the blow.

"Let's try this again," she said, looking down at him. "And one of these times we'll get it right. I'm not in a rush, Castiel, I've got all the time in the world before I need to call Bartholomew and hand you over. How 'bout you?"

"I knew nothing of Metatron's spell," he told her, sucking air through his teeth as he tried to find a way to blot the pain from his senses. Bartholomew. The name rang in his mind, wavering behind the pain. "I didn't know he was going to cast the angels out of Heaven. I was cast out too."

"Oh, dear," she said, straightening up and driving the sword into his chest. "Nothing but re-runs on this channel."

Cas watched his vision flicker at the edges, mist swirling from the sides that were obscuring the room, the woman beside him. She'd changed the angle at the last second, the tip slicing over the ribcage and driving in under the collarbone.

"These blades are marvellous, aren't they?" she asked, pulling the tip free and leaning over to look at him again. "They really do a number on humans too."

"I told you last night – and I meant it! – I was naïve," Cas said, his voice rasping in his throat. "I had no idea what he was planning!"

The sword plunged back in, resting against the bone. "You're lying! It's known you helped Metatron enter Heaven, collaborated with him!"

"Because we were going to restore Heaven," Cas said through his teeth. "Bring the factions together – he told me – he told me that closing Heaven would save those here, humanity from another angel war."

Nodding disbelievingly, April dragged the point through his flesh, cutting diagonally across his chest and the mists crowded in close, the pain flushing through his body as his body's nervous system attempted to report the damage done.

"He lied to me!"

"You were there when he unleased that spell," she spat at him, hand fisting in his hair and dragging his head back. "You know how the angels were cast down!"

"I didn't know he was assembling a spell –"

The sword went deeper this time, the tip pushing against the ribs, prising apart the bones, splitting the cartilage.

"I only knew," he said, as she forced his head back again. "That I was the final ingredient."

"You?"

"My Grace," Cas admitted reluctantly, his gaze dropping. "It's why I'm human, he took my Grace for the spell." His head fell forward as April released him.

"Or you gave it?" she suggested, the long blade shaving the stubble from the side of his neck and grazing his skin as she swept it up and held the edge under the line of his jaw.

"It may be unwise to kill me," he told her as steadily as he could, trying to control the involuntary twitches in his body. "If my Grace was the key to empowering the spell, I may be key to countering it."

She snorted as she took that in. "Are you attempting to negotiate with me, Castiel?"

He felt the blade slip along his neck, the cold air as it hit opening flesh, then the door to the apartment burst open and Dean's voice filled the room.

"CAS!"

April didn't hesitate, the angel blade swung smoothly down and around, burying itself deeply into Cas' body as she stepped back and away.

Cas caught sight of a silver flash near the door and despair hit him again. He'd meant to tell the brothers about the bullets, he had … had meant to tell them … but … had … not. Darkness swallowed him.

* * *

><p>April looked at the silver blade in the man's hand and lifted her arm, swinging it sharply to the left. Dean was flung into the wall, and he heard his brother hitting something on the other side, crashing and the sounds of breaking timber.<p>

The Raven glanced at the man who'd landed in the kitchen briefly, turning her gaze to the taller one pulling himself out of the destroyed closet.

"This girl's popular with all the boys," she said to herself, striding forward and closing her hands into fists. She thrust them forward and Sam's head snapped back, the force of the invisible blow slamming him into the wall, consciousness gone as he crumpled to the floor.

Behind her, Dean rolled to his knees and looked around for his sword. He watched his brother lifted and thrown back into the wall as he staggered past Cas, the sword protruding from his friend's stomach catching his eye. With a silent apology to the angel, he pulled it out as the red-head turned back to him, taking a long stride forward and driving it deep, with every ounce of his weight, angled upward under the ribs and into her heart. Light exploded from her and he held her on the length of the sword until it disappeared, yanking it out and letting her fall.

Turning around, he looked at the man sprawled, unmoving, in the chair.

"Cas?" He crossed the few feet to the chair in a stride, hands reaching for the angel's shoulders, his stomach plummeting as he felt the limp, dead weight of Cas' body. "Cas! Cas!"

_No. Not again. _

"CAS!"

_Not now, not like this, not … no. NO!_

By the wall, Sam pushed himself up, his face still and expressionless. Dean caught the movement from the corner of his eye, turning to see his brother get to his feet.

"Sam, he's gone," he said, straightening up as he stepped back.

Sam walked across the room, stepping over the crumpled body of the Raven, and Dean looked at him again, belatedly recognising the angel in the stiff movement, the cold eyes.

He watched as Ezekiel knelt beside Castiel, lifting his hand over the blood-smeared torso and the deep puncture wound with its distinctive four-edged outline. Light flowed from the angel's palm, _Sam's_ palm, sinking into the human flesh and glowing briefly as it slid deeper. _Sam's_ light, Dean thought, a little incoherently. Sam's soul healing Castiel as Ezekiel was healing his brother and himself with its power. How much fucking power did one soul have, he wondered remotely as he watched the wounds close up and disappear.

Ezekiel staggered upright, backing unsteadily away until he hit the wall. Dean watched his eyes roll back, the lids falling as Sam dropped to the floor.

"Dean."

Behind him, Cas sat up, his wrists still tied behind the chair. "Dean!"

"Yeah, hey, yeah," Dean said, glancing to the sides of the armchair and pulling out his knife. "Right."

Leaning forward, he cut the cords, mouth thinning slightly as he noticed how deeply it'd bitten into Cas' wrists. There was a thunk from the wall and he looked around as Sam pushed himself upright for the second time.

"And Sam," Cas said softly, staring at the youngest Winchester.

"Cas," Sam said, pushing himself higher against the wall. "You're okay?"

_CRAP!_ He realised Cas was going to have questions, and that would certainly raise more for his brother. He was turning when he saw the Raven lying there, a half-concocted story jumping into his mind.

"Never do that again!" he said to the ex-angel, forcing a growling note of anger into his voice.

"Alright," Cas agreed unsteadily, looking from Dean to the dead woman on the floor. "But … uh … I'm confused. I know she stabbed me, but I don't – I don't appear to be dead."

Dean looked down at the floor for a moment, then turned to his brother. "Well, you, uh, you got dinged," he said, establishing that while he could see that Sam wasn't sure of what'd happened. "And you," he added, turning back to Cas. "I made her bring you back. Made a deal that she wouldn't kebabed if she'd bring you back."

He smiled, feeling his cheeks ache with the effort. "An' she brought you back."

Cas looked down at April. "You mean you lied to her."

"I did," Dean admitted readily, hoping that it would be enough to divert the attention of both. "I do that."

"I've lied too," Cas confessed, freeing the loops from his hands and rubbing his wrists. "And I've stolen."

Dean blinked, turning to look at Sam. Sam looked back at him, pushing himself to his feet, the expression on his face suggesting that Dean was alone in this one.

"Uh, well, sometimes …" he started to say, then shook his head. "Pretty sure God's gonna forgive you that one, Cas."

He turned and picked up the two angel swords, wiping them clean, his back to both the ex-angel and his brother. He couldn't keep up with this fucking can of worms, he thought, seeing the tremble in his fingers as he finished cleaning the blades and put both into the inside pocket of his coat. Lying was second-nature, except to his family. Then it was impossible.

* * *

><p><em><strong>I-80 W, Iowa<strong>_

"I should have told you," Cas said, leaning forward, elbows along the back of the front seat between the two brothers. "I meant to and I should've, straight away."

"Told us what?" Sam asked, turning to look at him.

"Crowley's bullets," Cas said, looking at Sam. "He shot me, and it would've killed me, if I hadn't removed the slug."

"What bullets?" Dean asked, his gaze flicking to the rear-view mirror and catching Cas'.

"He melted the angel swords and made bullets from them," Cas said. "They worked. The same way as the swords do, a fatal shot is … fatal."

Sam let out a low whistle, turning back to Dean.

Dean looked out through the windshield, every possible ramification of that filtering through quickly.

"Can we do it? In the workshop?" Sam asked him quietly and he nodded. They had everything they needed.

"Need more angel swords," Dean said, thinking about it. "I've got three in the trunk, but we'll only get a couple of clips out of those."

"Shouldn't be too hard to come by, now," Sam said, shrugging.

Cas looked from Sam to Dean. "I'm sorry I didn't remember earlier."

"Better late than never," Dean said, his voice a little lighter as he picked apart exactly what he'd need to do to make the ordnance. "Definitely better than never."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

Dean dropped the bags on the steps of the library and tilted his head from side to side, stretching out stiff muscles as he followed Sam up the steps and through the library.

"Just like Maria's," Sam said over his shoulder.

"That a promise?" he called out, slowing as he reached the tables.

"Definitely."

Dropping into the chair, he let his head fall into his hands, rubbing slowly over his eyes.

"Are you alright, Dean?" Castiel asked as he walked slowly up the stairs.

Lifting his head, Dean forced himself upright. "Yeah, fine. You want to pick yourself out a room," he said, gesturing vaguely behind him to the hall. "Some of the guys who used to live here left, uh, spare shirts and, uh, what-have-yous. The bathrooms are upstairs, one to every two bedrooms." He stood up, looking around. "Uh, Sam's room is the first at this end, Kevin's the last, mine's the first on the other side."

"Thank you," Cas said, stopping beside him and looking around at the towering shelves. Dean felt himself sagging again.

"Dean, you don't look alright," Cas said softly.

"Long drive, that's it," he forced himself to say, looking up again. "Need my four hours, Cas."

"Ah … yes. Sleep. I think I will, tonight."

"Yeah, well, Sam's making dinner so go and find a room, and uh, grab a shower or whatever you want to do. Food'll be about an hour."

"Dean."

"Yeah?" He looked up, repressing the urge to snap. For someone who'd spent almost his entire life with just his brother and his father, or on his own, he realised that living with Kevin and Cas was going to be a monster ask.

"Thank you."

He ducked his head, nodding. "'Bout an hour."

"Right."

How'd he gotten to the point where he was lying to the people closest to him, he wondered? A few weeks ago, he hadn't been lying to anyone, not even himself.

* * *

><p>"You know, you never answered my question," Sam said as they walked back to the library from the kitchen. "How'd you know where to find Cas?"<p>

Dean looked at him and shrugged. "I told you, went through Maurice's pockets, found an address and took a shot."

"I never saw you go through Maurice's pockets, wha– ," Sam said, frowning as they stopped by the situation table.

"What are you talking about?" Dean cut him off before he could get going on the moment-by-moment dissection. "I mean I don't see half the nerdy stuff you do, doesn't mean you don't do nerdy stuff."

Sam looked away and Dean watched him, turning with relief as Cas came down through the library.

"You know, I am really enjoying this place," he told the brothers. "Plentiful food … good water pressure … things I never even considered before."

Dean flicked a glance at his brother, Sam catching the look, dimples deepening slightly.

"Being human," Sam said, with a shrug.

"Exactly," Cas nodded, looking around the library. "And having a purpose."

Dean lifted a brow slightly as he looked at the expression on Cas' face. "Not all burritos and bargirls?"

Cas' eyes widened a little. "Yes, there is so much more than I'd realised."

"You were watching the human race for more than two thousand years, Cas," Sam said, a little doubtfully.

"Watching, yes," Cas said, moving around the table and leaning on the edge. "Learning, no. This last week … it was very difficult not to be cast down by anger, or despair … or hedonism, for that matter."

"Where does hedonism come into it?" Dean asked, his brows rising.

"Well, my time with April was very educational," Cas told him.

Sam looked at Dean and back to the ex-angel. "Educational … hedonistically?"

"She was quite experienced, I believe." Cas looked at the brothers steadily.

Dean coughed, his eyes watering slightly as he looked at him. "You had sex with April?"

"That would be where the hedonism comes in –" Sam cut in.

"Tst!" Dean raised a hand at his brother.

Cas looked at them, nodding slightly. Dean seemed happier, he thought, somewhat mystified.

"So, uh, did you have protection?" Dean asked, eyes bright and the corners of his mouth tucking in a little.

Cas thought about that. "I had my angel blade."

Sam looked down as he caught a glimpse of Dean's face smoothing out by an act of will, the green of his eyes lightening measurably with the laughter being held inside.

"He had his angel blade," Dean repeated to Sam, his voice slightly strangled.

"Uh, well, that's certainly protection," Sam said to the floor. "Kind of a moot point at this stage."

"In any case," Cas continued, unsure of what seemed to passing between the brothers, neither able to look at each other as they threw their comments back and forth. "I do now see how difficult life can be, and how well you two have led it." He paused for a moment. "I think you will be great teachers."

"Uh …" Sam said.

"Thanks," Dean continued.

"Cas," Sam finished.

"Are there any more burritos?" Cas looked at Dean. He nodded, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the kitchen.

"Mmm … help yourself."

They watched the man climb the stairs and walk through the library, Dean's held-in laugh coming out in an explosive huff of air.

"Ah … go, Cas," he said, grinning. "He gave it up to a Raven, that is –"

Sam turned away, walking past him, his face expressionless and his voice the deeper timbre of the angel in residence. "Castiel cannot stay here. He will bring the angels down onto all of us."

"No, no, he's got the Enochian tattoo, he's warded," Dean protested, the last traces of the heart-lightening amusement wiped away at Zeke's unwelcome appearance.

Ezekiel turned back to him slowly. "He was warded when the Raven found him. And she killed him."

"Yes," Dean acknowledged hurriedly. "And you brought him back and I thank you for that, but this is _Cas_ … who vouched for you when I didn't know you from jack! The bunker is safe!" he added, waving a hand around at the walls surrounding them.

"Bartholomew is massing a force," Ezekiel pointed out succinctly. "We cannot stand an incursion." He took a step toward Dean, his voice dropping. "Castiel is in danger. And if he is here, _I_ am in danger."

"What? You're in danger? From who? The angels?" Dean asked, brows drawing together. The damned angel hadn't mentioned any grudges against himself when he'd talked about healing his brother.

Looking past Dean's shoulder, the angel watched the door from the library to the hall leading to the kitchen. "If he stays, I am afraid I will have no choice but to leave."

"What? No, you can't _do_ that," Dean argued, his voice rising slightly. "Sam's not well enough, if you leave his body –"

"I know," Ezekiel cut him off sharply. "I am sorry."

Dean looked at him, eyes widening fractionally as the choice became clear. He stepped back and turned away.

_Naturally_.

'Cause nothing ever came easy, did it? Not for him. He couldn't have his friend and brother both alive, safe and nearby at the same time. That would be tipping the odds of the fucking universe in his favour, that would be making it too goddamned easy for him to be able to finally stop and think for a few minutes. No, it had to be one or the other and fuck knows he always chose the same way.

He stopped at the library door, looking down at the floor as he leaned against the frame. They'd just gotten back from pulling Cas out. Now he was supposed to throw him out there again?

_The Raven found him. And she killed him._

And that was a helluva good reason not to send Cas out into the big bad again, he thought, his eyes closing as his stomach knotted. He needed a fucking drink.

He straightened up, turning to the hall and walking down it. Stopping at the office door halfway down, he walked in and turned on the light, moving around the desk and going to the framed map behind it. The frame moved out at his touch and he opened the small safe set into the wall, pulling out the box it contained.

Identification and a card for Yavoklevich to get the angel a DMV licence and a Social Security card. A couple of stacks of fifties, bound neatly in paper bands. A phone, scrambled to the best of Kevin's ability, which was considerable, and preset with the numbers Cas might need. He'd put the stash together months ago, figuring that anyone needed to bug out in a hurry, it would be there, ready. He hadn't really thought it would be needed. The goddamned bunker was safe – the safest place in the world, Larry'd said. But not, it seemed, safe enough for an angel who'd made mistake after mistake and was now being hunted from one side of the friggin' globe to the other.

Putting the box back in the safe, he bundled the money, ID and phone together, picking them up and going back to hall, veering for the closet near the stairs. He might have to send him out there, he thought bitterly, but it didn't have to be empty-handed. Taking the anonymous-looking green canvas bag from the closet, Dean walked down the stairs to the laundry, grabbing what he could find that was clean. The angel was close enough to his size.

* * *

><p>In the kitchen, Cas was seated at the counter, the remaining burritos Sam'd made stacked beside him, chewing on one and staring into space. He looked up as Dean walked in.<p>

"Cas, uh we need to talk."

"Of course," Cas said, moving the tray of food aside.

Dean moved to the end of the counter, dropping the bag on the floor and leaning against the bench as he tried to think of a way to tell his friend that the place of safety he'd finally made it to was going to be temporary. Very temporary.

"Listen, buddy … uh, you can't stay," he said, the words coming out far more bluntly than he'd planned. There wasn't any other way to say it.

Cas looked up at him, his expression puzzled. "Dean – I – I just got here."

"I know." He looked down. "And I can't explain to you why I'm saying this, but you just have to trust me, I wouldn't be sayin' it if there were any other way – at all. You get that?"

"No." Castiel's gaze cut away, his brows drawing together a little. "You told me to come here."

"I thought it was going to be safe, for you, for all of us. Turns out it's not."

Dark blue eyes rose to meet his. "Because Bartholomew is hunting me."

"That's a part of it," Dean admitted unwillingly. "I know this doesn't make a lot of sense and if I could tell you, I would, but I can't."

"When do you want to me to leave?" Cas said, putting the burrito he'd been eating down and getting to his feet.

"Now," Dean said, standing as well. He picked up the bag and held it to the angel. It held a couple of shirts, a clean pair of jeans, another coat, as well as the money, phone and ID. "This'll keep you going, so's you don't have to live hand-to-mouth, you understand? The phone has my number and Sam's, you run out of cash, or you get into trouble and you call."

Cas looked down at the bag. "Dean, I don't –"

"Take it, and keep that stuff with you, all the time," Dean said, pushing the bag into the man's arms. "Bus station is two blocks east, turn right at the end of the lane and keep going, you'll see it."

"Where do I go?"

Ducking his head, Dean felt a hot shame flux through him at the question. "I don't know."

He looked back at Cas, shaking his head a little. "Keep a low profile, try and blend in."

"For how long?"

"I don't know, man," he admitted quietly. "I don't know."

For a long moment, Cas didn't move, just stood looking at him. He couldn't tell what the angel – ex-angel – was thinking or feeling, although he could imagine.

"It's not that we don't want you here, Cas," he said, a scowl flashing like summer lightning over his face and gone. "It's – I think it'll be safer for you out there. For a while, anyway."

Castiel saw the lie, in the pain that filled the green eyes for a moment, in the break in the deep voice, a crack that was there, visible and then hidden. He nodded and walked around the table, heading for the hall, hearing Dean's footsteps coming slowly behind him.

Sam wasn't in the library or the situation room, and Cas started up the stairs, his boots clanking on the iron treads, the light weight of the bag over his shoulder seeming to grow heavier.

He opened the door and felt Dean behind him. Without looking back, Cas stepped through the door and into the cool air, climbing the shallow steps to the illusion-wreathed lane. At the top, he stopped for a moment, then he lifted his head and walked away.

Dean watched his friend disappear into the mists and between the not-really-there trees and closed the door, the locking rings settling into their places. He spun the small wheel and turn back to the staircase.

Cut him loose … like Kevin and Benny … can't keep them close, no, that option's never on the table. He hit the last step and strode across the situation room, and the library, turning right to get to the side of the building that held his room. He didn't want to see Sam right now, to face his undoubted confusion at what had happened and the way he knew his brother would keep questioning him until he got an answer that satisfied him. There was no such thing, he thought, hitting the next landing and walking along the hall to the big room he'd claimed. Pushing the door open, his hand reaching in to flip the light switch next to it, he looked around the room aimlessly.

He thought of what Sam'd said. A home. Friends. Family. What good was that if he was forced, time after time, to cut his friends loose and leave them out in the cold? He didn't need many people in his life, just a few, to trust, to be himself with, to put his back against. And like so many times before, they were being driven out, they were leaving him or being told to get lost and he couldn't seem to change it, couldn't seem to stop it. He walked to the bed, sitting on the edge and pulling his boots off, staring at the floor.

He let himself fall onto his side, reaching out to hit the switch on the lamp. Darkness filled the room and he closed his eyes.


	7. Chapter 7 Under the Rainbow

**Chapter 7 Under the Rainbow**

* * *

><p><em><strong>New Jersey<strong>_

The flames died and the map remained unmarked, a pair of narrowed, cat-green eyes staring at it in dissatisfaction. Behind Abaddon, against the wall and as close to the door as they could be without seeming to want a fast exit, two demons stood, gazes on the floor. It was the fourth attempt to find the King of Hell and like the others, it had failed with a whimper.

"Bring in the girl," the archdemon ordered, her voice waspish with frustration.

The demons removed themselves from the room in record time and Abaddon turned back to the map.

"Where _are_ you hiding yourself, Crowley, that I cannot see you?" she murmured. On the floor, a much larger map held a scorched tinge across the continental United States, narrowing the search at least from the entire planet. But that was all the progress she'd made, and she was almost out of ideas.

The door behind her swung open and she turned around. Held tightly between the two demons, the child was no more than eleven, she thought. Puberty was coming earlier and earlier to the species and it had been surprisingly difficult to secure a sacrifice who met all the required criteria.

Well, she thought prosaically, gesturing to the demons to move the girl to the table, in the not-too-distant future, that kind of social worry wouldn't be an issue. Those humans left alive wouldn't be worried about anything other than staying that way.

She pulled the long, slender knife from the sheath belted at her hip, spinning it casually between her fingers as she walked to the table. Entrails had always been a reliable source of information.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

"No," Kevin said tiredly, stabbing a finger toward the table. "It lit up with markers right across the world, every single country had at least a dozen indicators showing, most had more – a lot more – than that."

"It was tracking the fall?" Sam asked, staring at the table.

"That's what it looked like," the prophet agreed, turning to look at the boxy metal counter on the other side of the room. "The entire panel was flashing and the alarms were going off … then I heard the door lock and the generators went off."

Sam followed his gaze, nodding to himself. "Failsafe, but it has to be programmed in."

"Sure," Kevin agreed. "And how … that's anybody's guess. To track anything like that, you need a key. This is a long way out of my pay grade, Sam, and too many years before my time."

"This whole room, these machines, they're not the CPU, are they?"

"No, these are just the peripherals. The, um, bells and whistles."

"So where's the computer?"

"You haven't found it?" Kevin looked at him in surprise. "I thought you guys have been through here?"

"Hundreds of times now," Sam said, his face screwing up. "But the, uh, blueprints we found, they're not entirely accurate." He thought of the room at the back of the storage level, hidden behind the rolling shelves. "So, I'm guessing that we've missed something."

"Or a whole lotta something," Kevin muttered, getting up. "I gotta crash, I'm wasted."

Looking up at him, Sam asked, "You eaten?"

Kevin nodded. "Had two steaks when I came down," he said. He caught the beginnings of the hunter's frown and added, "And salad. A lot of salad."

Sam relaxed a little. "Before you sleep, can you give me a hand tracing these cables?"

Kevin looked down at the floor where the pair of twisted cables from the table disappeared into a small, iron grating in the floor. "If they're running through the walls or ceilings …"

"I know, we'll lose them," Sam agreed, getting to his feet. "But they seemed to have wired this in after they built, so I'm hoping that the cable run'll be mostly visible."

"Okay, sure," Kevin agreed, glancing back down at the wires. "What's right below us?"

"Artefact collections," Sam told him, heading for the stairs. "Two levels."

"Can we go deeper?" Kevin asked, looking at the huge engines surrounding them.

Sam shook his head. "This is it, the lowest level." He looked in frustration at the generator room's ceiling. "It should've come through here."

"I don't think we're exactly in line with that last run down the wall on the level above us," Kevin told him, walking down the row of quietly humming generators toward the far wall. "If we can't get down, maybe the lowest levels go … out?"

Following him, Sam looked at the featureless stone walls. "Why would they put it down here?"

"In the olden days, a computer of any power took a lot of room, and it had to be kept cool," Kevin told him absently, looking closely along the walls for any kind of break or join. "They also had to be kept very stable. Maybe they purpose-built some kind of room here." He stopped suddenly, head tilting. "You hear that?"

Sam did. A very low frequency vibration. He leaned forward and rested his hands against the wall in front of him. "There's something here, behind this wall."

"Were most of the rooms locked with a secret lock or voice-activated or what?"

Shaking his head, Sam leaned closer to the wall. "A mix, so far. No common protocol."

He thought about the blueprints for the building. Yavoklevich had given him an updated set but they still hadn't included the dungeon. And in his mind's eye, the shape of them had seemed peculiar, the lower levels unevenly outlined.

"God."

"What?" Kevin looked around at him, eyebrows rising at Sam's expression.

"There's an elevator," Sam said, striding past him and down the row of gensets. "We thought it was just to bring in heavy stuff, the collections, food, supplies, 'cause it didn't have access to the upper levels but … it's on the other side, and there are rooms behind that wall!"

Hurrying after him, Kevin wondered what else they were going to find in the building.

* * *

><p>In the workshop, Dean stared at the angel sword irritably. Nothing he'd tried … <em>so far<em>, he told himself acerbically … had had any impact on the damned thing. The spectrometer couldn't tell him what the fuck the sword was made from and he'd destroyed several containers trying to melt the damned things. What'd Crowley used to get temps beyond the three thousand degrees he could manage here?

"Dean," Sam said, the door swinging open as he burst through. "Come on, you have to see this!"

"In the middle of something, Sam," he growled, his gaze remaining fixed on the sword.

"It'll wait, come on."

It wasn't like he actually _was_ in the middle of anything, he thought with a gusty exhale. Without being able to melt the suckers, there wasn't anything else he could do. He got to his feet and turned around, one brow lifting at the repressed excitement he could see in Sam's face.

"What?"

"Come on," Sam said over his shoulder as he turned and disappeared through the door.

Lengthening his stride, Dean followed him out and down the hall, surprised when Sam turned into the library and continued down through the situation room.

"Where're we going?"

"The elevator."

They'd looked it over briefly when they'd found it, tucked at the back of the narrow hall that led from the situation room to a number of store-rooms, built along the building's front walls. Figured it'd been installed to make it easier to move the crates and supplies in. It was an old-fashioned box lift, with a rattling cage door and a very slow ascent rate, big enough for five people to squeeze into.

Swerving around the situation table and following Sam down the corridor, he couldn't imagine what had excited his brother about the elevator. It went up and down. That was about it.

"What's going on?"

Sam stopped at the lift, pushing the folding metal gate to one side and gesturing for Dean to get in.

"Kevin's already there," he said, and Dean scowled at him.

"Already … where?" he asked, watching Sam hit the lowest button. The box trembled a little and then with a groan and a jerk, began to descend.

"I was trying to work out a way to help out Cas. Kevin said that the table lit up like a Christmas tree when the angels fell," Sam said, leaning against the panelled wall and looking at him. "All over the world, there were markers that seemed to indicate where the angels were falling, or at least, the biggest concentrations of them."

"Yeah? So?"

"So, someone in the order must have had a way to track them, their 'celestial frequencies' or whatever they really are," Sam continued, bending his knees a little as the lift stopped with a faint bang. Dean watched, slightly mystified as his brother pressed three buttons together. He swung a hand out to brace himself as the lift grumbled into motion, descending again.

"We got more levels?"

"A lot more," Sam confirmed with a grin. "If we can figure out what the table was keying from, we could maybe use it to find the angels, steer Cas away from them."

"This was – your idea?" Dean asked uneasily, looking at Sam.

"You see anyone else here?" his brother replied, an edge of defensiveness along his voice.

"No, sorry," Dean said, looking away. "Angel sword's driving me nuts, don't, uh, so–"

Sam's forehead wrinkled up. "So … Kevin said that the table and the equipment upstairs are just for reporting, the main computer had to be somewhere else –"

"Main … computer?"

Sam nodded. "It's down on the generator level but you can't get to it except by the lift." He waved a hand at the panel. "Actually there are few places you can't get except by using combinations of floor levels, we haven't been through them all yet."

"Okay," Dean said impatiently. "So what about the computer?"

"Well, Kevin's looking at it now, but it's – uh – well, it's – old."

"Old?"

"Early fifties, state of the art when Truman was President. Might take us a bit of time to figure out how to get into it," Sam admitted, a little reluctantly.

"Kevin, 'The Wonder Brain', can't crack it?" Dean asked doubtfully. "Who else could if he cant'?"

"I got an idea about that, but anyway, he got it running."

The elevator came to a halt, the cable jerking them again as the inner door opened. Sam pushed the gate open and Dean looked around as they stepped out.

The room was large and perfectly clean, iron-covered vents at regular intervals around the tops of the walls. To one side, several shelves took up most of one wall, and Dean frowned as he recognised the wards and sigils marking the boxes, bottles and containers that were stacked there. Most of the space was taken up by a very long, rectangular metal box, the front panels lit up with lights, switches and buttons, a small screen at one end, with a boxy-looking keyboard in front of it.

"Got it!"

He turned to see Kevin emerging from behind the metal console. The prophet scurried around the end and the black and white screen in the console came alive, figures scrolling blurrily fast up the screen.

Walking over, Dean stood behind Kevin and looked at it. "Just a bunch of ones and zeroes," he said, his tone disappointed.

"Binary?" Sam moved to Kevin's other side.

"Machine code," Kevin confirmed, frowning at it.

"What's it mean?"

"Unfortunately, I don't habitually think in binary, Dean," Kevin snapped at him.

"That's okay, I know someone who does," Sam said, his voice soothing as he glanced at his brother over Kevin's head. "What about the power source?"

"I can't find one."

"Can't be running on nothing," Dean said, frowning as he walked around the long metal console to the rear.

"No, obviously," Kevin agreed. "But there's nothing going into this box."

The back panel of the computer was flush to the frame and screwed in at intervals. Dean looked around, spotting the small metal toolbox with a huff of relief. He walked to the shelving and opened it, taking out a screwdriver and giving Kevin a slightly superior glance as he started undoing the first screw.

All three looked at the innards of the machine when the panel was lifted aside.

"Well, nothing here I recognise," Kevin broke the silence sourly. "Your hacker over sixty, Sam?"

"No, but she'll know this," Sam said, only a little doubt in his voice. He looked at Dean.

"I'll get her," Dean said, nodding. "So this, uh, binary –"

"It's the most basic code for giving instructions to a machine," Kevin cut him off. "I could give you the history but you'd probably go to sleep. Just tell her the programming's machine code and she'll know what you're talking about."

"Right." He turned and headed for the lift, looking back over his shoulder at Sam. "Charlie still in Topeka?"

"Last I heard," Sam confirmed, walking around the console again.

* * *

><p><em><strong>US-36 W, Kansas<strong>_

Dean glanced sideways at the woman sitting in the passenger seat. "So, how's it that you got so much free time to help us out?"

Charlie sighed. "Lost my job."

"Huh."

She turned to look at him, and shrugged. "Just another stupid decision in a long line of them. No big."

He heard the undercurrent of something in her voice, some doubt or uncertainty, he thought.

"What happened to you?" she asked him, plainly wanting to talk about anything else.

"Same old," he answered warily.

"Not likely," she said, justifying that feeling. "You look like crap, Dean, and something's eating at you."

He flicked a look at her, wondering how much he was showing if she was picking it up. "Fallen angels, archdemon loose, losing friends … take your pick."

Charlie shook her head. "Those would make you mad, this is something different."

He smiled humourlessly. "You think so, huh?"

She was silent and he glanced at her. _Too close, not close enough_, he thought with an inward sigh. She knew all the events, all the things that had driven him, and Sam, to where they were now. She even knew a lot of the emotions that Chuck had picked up and added to the stories. But he hadn't _told_ her those things and her knowing them felt like a violation, not a friendship.

"How's Sam?" she asked a moment later.

"He's fine."

"Are you ever going to trust me, Dean?" Charlie asked, lifting her head and looking at him.

He couldn't answer her and under the rumble of the engine and the thrum of the tyres over the road, silence filled the car.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

Sam saw the tension around her mouth as she came down the stairs, the slightly forced quality to her smile. He flicked an upwards glance at his brother, seeing it reflected in Dean as well, and he wondered what Charlie had said or done during the drive.

"Hey," he said to her, hugging her and looking down. "Thanks for helping out."

"No problem, let's go take a look at the dinosaur."

Leading the way to the elevator, Sam looked back over his shoulder at Dean. His brother met his eyes briefly and looked away with a slight shrug.

The lift stopped three levels down and Charlie's eyes widened a little as she watched Sam press the buttons together to continue the ride down.

"Nice," she commented.

"Yeah, I should've been thinking of this kind of thing when I looked around the place," Sam agreed.

"Live and learn," Charlie said philosophically, following him through the doors as they stopped on the lowest level.

Next to the computer, Kevin looked around, stepping back from the screen as Charlie hurried over to it.

"Kevin, this is Charlie Middleton," Sam said to the prophet. "Charlie, Kevin Tran."

"The prophet?" she asked him, holding out her hand.

"The hacker?" he shot back, shaking it briefly.

"What's the story?" she asked, smiling a little at him and turning to look at the screen. The ones and zeroes continued to scroll up. Her brows drew together and she leaned closer.

"No key, no interface that I can get into without knowing the program, and," he said, gesturing vaguely at the console. "– no power source that we can find."

"That's different," Charlie remarked. "This looks like a sys-check file. Was it shut down recently?"

"Yeah, a few days ago." Kevin leaned against the console. "You can read that?"

"After a fashion," she replied, picking up her bag and pulling out her tablet. "Dean said that you opened it up?"

"Around the back," Kevin said, walking behind the machine. Charlie followed him and crouched down to look at the plethora of vacuum tubes and drums.

"Punched cards?"

"I/O's on the other side," Kevin confirmed. "Can you rewire that interface?"

"Not sure yet," Charlie admitted, tracing the simple memory tubes along the rear side of the console. She looked up at the three men watching her. "This is going to take a bit of time, and I work better if I'm not under the microscope."

Sam exchanged a look with his brother, nodding. "Sure."

"Right."

"Okay," Kevin added, yawning. "I'm gonna crash."

Charlie looked back at the tubes and reached for the screwdriver Dean had left on the floor. It would be a patch job of gargantuan proportions, she thought, starting on the panel, but input was input and binary was a mathematical constant for describing anything at all.

* * *

><p>Sam and Dean looked up as Charlie emerged two hours later, a sheaf of notes in one hand.<p>

"You got a workshop here I can use to make up a circuitry board?" she asked, walking up the steps to the library.

"Let's see what you need," Dean said, getting up. He took the schematic and nodded. "Yeah, I can do this. Take about an hour."

Charlie watched him head out of the library, glancing back at Sam, brows lifting in a tacit question. His mouth tucked in at one corner, showing a dimple as he nodded reassuringly.

"Don't let him fool you with that don't-know-nuthin' crap," he said, softly.

"Good, saves me the time," she said, looking back down at her list. "I need two monitors, a twenty-terabyte hard drive and some cabling."

He took the list she gave him, his gaze travelling down it.

"I'll get this stuff," he said, picking his jacket up from the back of his chair and picking up the car keys from the table, his boots clanging as he went up the iron stairs quickly.

Charlie stood alone in the library. "And um, where's the kitchen? I need about two gallons of coffee and something to eat …?"

* * *

><p><em><strong>Two hours later<strong>_

Installing the hardware carefully, Charlie soldered the wires neatly from the analogue connections to the digital board.

"That can talk to the computer?" Sam asked, peering over her shoulder.

"One and zeroes," she answered him distractedly, duck-walking sideways to make the next connection. "Binary's base level. I've written a program to talk to this machine and run it through an assembler to convert it to that one," she added, waving a hand in the direction of the tablet sitting on the console. "Then we'll be able to see what this thing is keeping in memory."

"What's it do?" Dean moved back as she shifted closer to him.

"From what I can tell from the check file, it's the brain for the building," Charlie said, checking the run of the cable. "It looks like it controls everything from the generators to the ventilation system, how hot the water is, pretty much all the stuff you've got upstairs is plugged into it."

"How is it that it's not running off the generators?"

"Ah …" She turned off the soldering iron and straightened up. "They must've thought that was risky, using a power source that could fail."

The brothers exchanged a look. "What power source _doesn't_ have a risk of failing?" Sam asked bemusedly.

"A permanent, self-perpetuating one," Charlie said. She looked at them as she walked around to the monitors and keyboard she'd set up. "You knew about the node here, right?"

"Node?" Dean and Sam asked together.

"In the ley lines," Charlie nodded. "Should've thought of that myself, but I just never went into it that much."

"What?"

"Ley lines?" Sam said, running a hand through his hair. "I thought that was pretty much debunked."

"About as much as vampires and werewolves," she retorted, entering a command into the system and beginning to type. "I wouldn't know about it either except that I ran into the information while I was working on a …"

Her voice trailed away and she frowned at the monitor.

"On a what?" Dean asked, following her around to the front of the machine, his tone suspicious.

"Um … well … on a case," she admitted reluctantly. Her gaze cut away from him as she saw the change in his expression. "It was just a small one."

"A case?" Sam asked, walking around the other side of the machine and bracketing Charlie. "What kind of case?"

"Uh … a ghost, actually."

"You're hunting?"

"It was just a simple salt and burn," she said, shifting a little further from Dean as his brows drew together, the look he was giving her signifying that he was not at all pleased to hear of her adventures.

"Goddamnit, Charlie –"

"What?! I couldn't turn aside when I realised what was going on, alright?"

"Why the hell didn't you call us?" he snapped at her.

"You were busy with the trials and the angels and everything, and I thought I could take care of it myself," she said defensively, keeping her gaze fixed to the screen.

"Thought you could …? What happened?" Sam looked at her.

"I did take care of it," she answered him. "It got a bit hairy but I put it to rest."

She looked up, from Sam to Dean and shook her head. "It doesn't matter, the only reason it was harder than I'd thought it would be was because the ghost was pulling power from a node in the lines and that's when I had to read up about them."

"The punchline, Charlie, in English," Dean said sharply.

"Come here," she said, spinning the screwdriver absently between her fingers as she crouched in front of the panel on the front. She'd only refastened two of the ten screws holding it in and she passed the panel to Sam as she lifted it off.

Behind the valves, tubes and wiring, a small metal door was just visible, and using a fingernail, Charlie found the catch and opened it.

Sam and Dean stared uncomprehendingly at the bright light that spilled out, looking for all the world like a tiny, intense sun, spinning in place. It was surrounded by delicate filaments of fine wire, twisted into a loosely-shaped spiral, the lower end wide, like an upside-down funnel.

"What is that?" Sam asked.

"Basically? A generator. That stuff that looks like a spider's web are transducers, they're converting the earth's electromagnetic energy into electricity. The bright, spinning thing in the centre is a capacitor, it's storing the energy drawn in and feeding the power requirements of the computer."

"But what – you know what? Never mind," Dean said, rising from the crouch and shaking his head. "Alright, one mystery solved, Nancy Drew, what about the computer?"

"It'll take about four hours for the program to run," Charlie said, picking up the screwdriver and closing the door to the energy generator, taking the panel from Sam and replacing the screws. "Then I'll have an ASCII interface I can use to query the whole thing."

"How're the bullets coming along?" Sam asked him.

"They're not," Dean said tersely. "Moulds are all done, casings are ready, but I can't melt the goddamned swords."

"What are they made of?" Charlie looked from Sam to Dean.

"Your guess is as good as mine," he told her sourly. "Spectrometer has no clue."

"What temps have you tried so far?" Sam frowned.

"I can get the furnace up to about three thousand degrees," Dean said, his breath gusting out in frustration. "That's it."

Charlie looked around the room, their conversation running over her. It was mostly bare, but one wall held a section of deep shelving, covered with boxes, jars, bottles and what seemed to be sealed baskets. She wandered over to it, looking at the markings that covered nearly all of them. She stopped beside a thick glass jar. Inside, two liquids, one a deep, emerald green, the other an almost pearlescent, blueish-white, had been poured together, neither colour infiltrating the other, the two locked together in separate spirals around each other. She leaned forward and lifted it from the shelf, looking at them more closely, her thumb resting under the edge of the lid.

"What're these?"

Dean and Sam turned to look at her, Dean's expression turning to a scowl instantly. "Put it back, exactly where you found it!"

Charlie hurriedly returned the bottle to the shelf, not noticing the small puff of air that escaped the lid as the base banged down.

"They're curse boxes," Dean said, his voice deep. "Don't look at them, don't touch them, do _not_ pick them up!"

Retreating from the shelves, she turned back to the screen, watching the instructions flashing over it and vaguely hearing the discussion about melting points behind her.

"Try a welder," she said, over her shoulder. "We had to use a welder to make the silver arrowheads for the ceremonial defeat of the Shadow Orcs. Silver's melting point is pretty high."

Sam looked at his brother, seeing his mouth drop open. Without a word, Dean turned and headed for the elevator.

"So, you've been hunting," Sam said, turning back to Charlie as the elevator doors closed. "Alone."

Charlie looked up at him guiltily. "I know."

"It's not a game, Charlie, you could get killed."

"But I didn't," she said, lifting her chin a little. "And I put the ghost to rest."

"What'd you think of it?" he asked, curious about how it'd felt to her, something she'd chosen, deliberately, to do.

She turned away from him with a dramatic shrug. "I was scared to death for most of it, worried that I'd forgotten something, had left something out …" she said, shaking her head. "And I did, I mean I had no idea about the power of the nodes along the lines or the fact that ghosts – or anything non-corporeal monster – could draw on them, so things got – well, anyway, I did figure it out, and added the notes to my database, and it was okay."

"Okay?"

She looked down for a long moment. "Three teenagers died because of that spirit, Sam, and I felt totally good when I packed up the car, and started home. But … I thought it would feel different."

"How?" His forehead creased up as he looked at her and she saw the expression, lifting a hand in a helplessly frustrated gesture.

"I don't know," she admitted. "I guess … I thought it was going to be … more magical." She looked at him, seeing his expression and rolling her eyes. "I know, but I … after what happened in Farmington, it did seem more magical."

"Charlie, that was faeries," Sam reminded her, his tone blunt.

"Yeah," she said, sighing softly. "Yeah. On this case, I figured out who the spirit was, and that was fun, it was exciting to track it. Then when it got right down to it, I was mostly afraid, then I was digging, and I mean for hours, then it, um, came after me and I had to fire at it, thinking the damned people living around the boneyard would be calling the cops any minute, and I'd be arrested and locked up for discharging a firearm in a public place. I got the salt in, and a half a can of gas and threw in the match. And it was over."

"That's usually the good part," Sam told her dryly. "You're disappointed because it was dirty, hard work that no one else knew about?"

She looked up at him, recognising the faint jibe.

"Where's the adventure?"

"Charlie, it's not an adventure," he told her gently. "It's a dirty, hard job that no one ever thanks you for doing."

She nodded uncomfortably and looked at the screen again. "Got another three hours, any ideas of what we can do?"

"Yeah," Sam said, getting up and stretching his back. "I do. We'll get some take-out, and watch some epic fantasy and take our minds off real life."

"Sounds like a plan."

"Good work on the ley lines, by the way," Sam said as they walked together to the elevator. "Dad and Bobby never thought there was that much to them."

"Whole universe is energy in one form or another," Charlie countered, stepping into the lift. "It can't be destroyed or created, only change form. These guys seem like they were pretty clued into that."

"I guess so," Sam agreed, closing the gate.

* * *

><p>The computer hummed quietly to itself, lines of code racing up the screen faster than could be read as Charlie's program assembled. The bottle on the shelf wobbled unsteadily, the liquid inside sloshing a little against the sides. It stopped. Then the green liquid rose suddenly up the side and the loosened top fell off, bouncing musically on the floor. The bottle wobbled violently as the white liquid swirled upward beside the green, and it fell from the shelf, smashing as it hit the floor, the two liquids spreading out through the broken shards, writhing across the floor in opposite directions.<p>

* * *

><p>"Where's Kevin?" Sam asked his brother as Dean dumped a bowl full of popcorn in his lap, carrying another over to the bed and putting it next to Charlie.<p>

"Sleeping like the dead," Dean said, sitting on the other side of the bed and stretching out his legs as he took a handful of the buttery puffs of corn. "What are we watching?"

"Game of Thrones, season one," Sam said, smiling slightly at Charlie.

"What's it about?"

"Murder, treason, beheadings, family rivalries and wild, gratuitous sex in another world," Charlie told him through a mouthful of popcorn.

"O-_kay_."

From the chair on the other side of the bed, Sam snorted.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Three hours later<strong>_

"Well, did you like it?" Sam picked up the remote and turned off the disc before the closing titles.

"It was okay," Dean allowed, giving a dismissive shrug. "Could've used a better fight co-ordinator."

"Okay!?" Charlie looked at him in outrage. "Fight co-ordinator!?"

His mouth curved up one side at her reaction, and she scowled at him, realising he'd been baiting her deliberately. The big brother she'd never wanted.

"Your thing done yet?" he asked, getting off the bed. "I'm gonna check on Kevin."

"We'll check it," Sam said, watching him go.

"What is going with him?" Charlie asked as soon as the door had closed.

"I don't know." Sam looked at the floor, picking up the empty bowl and putting it on the nightstand. "There's – a lot has been happening."

Frowning, Charlie shook her head. "That's not it. The last time he looked like that, all chewed up, he was worried about what the trials were doing to you."

Sam thought about that, nodding slowly. "He's still not convinced I'm okay, you know, from that."

"Why not? You look a lot better than he does," she retorted, pulling in a breath slowly. "Don't you two ever just talk about what's going on with you?"

Sam's sideways look was eloquent. "No, not usually."

"Why not?"

_Why not?_ Sam wondered. Because they needed each other to be strong? Because they'd gone through too much, lost too much and the old foundations, their childhoods and the way things had been were all crushed and broken now?

"I don't know," he said, getting to his feet and going to the door. "Too much crap in the last few years."

"Sam, this place, and everything you guys have now …"

"Yeah," he said, opening the door and holding it for her. "I thought, well, I thought this was a home for us, of a kind, we've got people around, like you and Kevin, other hunters who've survived, still got my brother –"

"And he's still got you," Charlie interjected, wondering if that was a part of the problem between them.

"Yeah, but now …" he trailed away and she stopped in the hall, turning to look at him.

"What?"

"I don't want to spend the rest of my life living like this," Sam said, the words coming out involuntarily, from someplace he hadn't acknowledged.

"You want to stop hunting?"

"No, I want to stop living as if that's all there is," he corrected her. "Everyone else, it seems like, can do both, even our grandparents, even friends …"

"What does Dean think about that?"

"We haven't – I don't know," Sam said. "Before the end of the trials, last year, he seemed to think it was impossible." He shook his head. "Like we were cursed, or he was, in some way."

Listening to him, Charlie remembered Dean's doubts, the last time she'd seen them. The way he'd brushed off her suggestion that it wasn't just her who needed to let things go.

Sam stopped talking as he saw his brother at the end of the narrow hall, standing beside the elevator and Charlie bit her lip.

"Still asleep?"

Dean looked up and nodded. "Out for the count."

"He said the tablet was taking a lot out of him." The elevator tinged softly and Sam pulled open the gate, following Dean and Charlie into it. "He could use the sleep."

"And we could use the intel," Dean reminded him, his gaze cutting briefly to Charlie then returning to his brother.

Charlie looked at the buttons on the panel, flinching a little inwardly at the sudden tension between the two men. She still didn't know them well, she thought. Like it or not, Sam had been right about hunting. She'd told the faery, back in Farmington that she couldn't be like them, doing what they did every single day, facing it like it was a job, not a calling to a more honourable life than the nine-to-five grind that most people had. Maybe, if things were different, if she wasn't trying to go it alone, it would feel more noble, less like an underpaid civil servant's job. But she couldn't ask them if she could be a part of their lives. When they wanted her there, they called.

The doors opened and she stepped forward, pulling open the gate, her gaze going from the cursor blinking invitingly on the screen at the console, beyond it to the mass of stone-coloured growth that had filled the wall behind the shelves, her mouth dropping open.

"What the –" Dean was out of the lift, striding past her across the room to get a better look at the wall.

"Stay here," Sam cautioned, following his brother across the room. Charlie snorted. She didn't need to be told that twice.

Closer to, Sam realised there were two sections to the twisting, tangled protrusions, one that was a paler colour than the wall to the left of the shelves. The other, holding a tint of green, to the right.

Dean's gaze swept over the broken glass on the floor, the powdery track to the wall. He threw a look back over his shoulder.

"Charlie, that liquid get on you when you picked up the bottle before?"

She shook her head, lifting and looking at her hands closely. "No, the lid was on tight, it was clean."

He nodded abruptly and turned back and Charlie felt her heart sink as she looked at the broken glass, the scattered fragments catching the light. She mustn't've put it back far enough on the shelf, she thought, somehow, it'd fallen. And let god-knew-what out.

The sharp click of a switchblade pulled her attention back to the wall, and she watched Dean probe the substance with the tip of the knife, cutting down through it as it penetrated easily. She saw him start as an arm fell out, her own heart jumping instantly into her throat. He closed his knife, putting it back into a pocket and pulled the edges of the slit he'd made apart. The body of a woman fell onto the floor at his feet and he took a step back, automatic in his hand, cocked and aimed.

"Okay," he muttered to himself, crouching cautiously beside her and rolling her from her side to her back. The close-fitting deep cream trousers, white shirt and short, tan leather bomber jacket gave him an impression of a different time. Dark hair, drawn back into a roll at the back of her neck added to the impression, images from black and white movies filling his imagination.

Her eyes snapped open as she drew in a deep breath and he rocked back onto his heels, glancing up at Sam.

"Who the hell are you?" the woman asked him, turning her head.

"Who the hell are _you_?" he countered, lifting the gun.

"Dorothy Baum," she told him, pushing her elbows under her and sitting up. "This is the Litteris Hominae, right?"

"Right," Sam said, taking a step closer. "And up to a few minutes ago, we've been living here for almost a year – alone."

"You're scholars? Legacies?" Dorothy asked, her gaze brushing over Charlie dismissively as she looked from Sam back to Dean. Charlie moved back to the console, typing the name into the computer, her brows shooting up as the data was returned, text and reports and old, black and white photographs.

"No," Dean said, straightening up. "We're hunters."

"Where are the legacies?" she asked, rolling to her feet and standing. "We don't have any time."

"Why not?" Dean asked, an edge to his voice as he looked at her.

"Because Dorothy Baum is the daughter of L. Frank Baum," Charlie interjected, staring at the screen. "She's a hunter from 1935, who was trapped here, somehow, when she brought the Wicked Witch of the West from the Land of Oz."

"What?" Dean turned to look at her, Sam looking around as well. Charlie looked at their identical expressions of disbelief.

"It's here," she told them, gesturing to the screen. "_Everything_ is here, every book, manuscript, scroll, the details of artefacts and all the files of the Litteris Hominae … they're all in here. And this is a case file … the first one after this building was completed."

"Slow down," Dean said, walking around to the computer. "You're trying to tell me that some hinky place in a kid's movie is real? Come on!"

"It was a book before they made it into a movie and it's as real as New Jersey," Charlie told him disparagingly. "See for yourself."

Looking back at Dorothy, she was a little surprised to see that she was tall, maybe five ten or eleven, she estimated, looking at the height difference as the hunter stood next to Sam.

"Oz is a parallel dimension?" she asked.

Dorothy nodded, throwing a slightly sour look at Dean. "One of more than a thousand and with only a few joins to ours," she confirmed. "I couldn't kill the witch in Oz, and trust me, I tried everything. I brought her here hoping that the legacies would have a way."

Sam walked around the computer, looking at the screen over Dean's shoulder. He could feel his brother's disinclination to believe it, even as they both looked at the file in front of them.

"And they didn't?" Sam guessed, turning to look at her.

"Not in time," Dorothy said tightly. "The binding spell is only efficacious for a certain amount of time and we ran out. I knew one spell, to hold her indefinitely, and I worked it."

Sam gestured at the broken jar. "You locked yourself up with her?"

"It was the only thing I could do," she said, shrugging. "Couldn't have let her get out here." She looked from Sam to Dean. "But I'm out, and so is she."

"Why didn't she just kill you when you both got out?" Dean asked, putting aside his doubts about the Oz side of things unwillingly to focus on the more immediate problem of the witch.

Dorothy gestured to the green-tinted growth on the other side of the shelving. "She can't kill me –"

"Because you're protected!" Charlie squeaked, staring at her. "By the kiss of the Good Witch of the North."

Dorothy frowned at her. "Yeah, but that's not going to help any of you. And it doesn't give me a way to finish this, once and for all."

"She's trying to get back to Oz?" Sam interjected.

"I would've thought so, but she can't, not without me," Dorothy said slowly. "And she didn't come after me."

Dean turned to look at Sam. "This place has a lotta stuff that a witch might want."

"A witch from Oz?" Sam asked, shaking his head.

"You said she can't back without you?" Charlie said, reading through the file. "But there are holes along the lines where Oz joins to this world –"

"Yes, vortices are a way through – tornado, maelstrom, anything that can spin beyond a certain velocity – but they're random, you can't predict where they'll be, not even the witches can see them," Dorothy agreed.

"So how did you cross over?" Sam asked.

"The wizard created a whirlpool for me, in the lake outside of Emerald City," Dorothy said. "We were running out of time and I grabbed her and jumped in."

"Alright," Dean said, making a determined effort to stop himself from wanting to snort with every reference to the land of Oz and looking at Charlie. "Go through the files and whatever you can access and find a way to put a dent in the witch. Sam and I'll have a look-see."

"I'll come with you, if we split up –"

Sam held up a hand and gestured to the computer. "Stay with Charlie, if the witch comes back, you both need backup."

"But –"

The door closed behind him and Dorothy turned to look at Charlie disgruntedly. "So you're a legacy?"

"Uh, no," Charlie said, looking at the screen. "I'm a –" She stopped as the word she wanted to say didn't seem quite accurate. Not anymore. "I'm a … uh … a programmer."

"And you work here? With the hunters?"

"No – not, um, all the time," Charlie admitted. "You don't seem much like the character your father wrote about."

Dorothy made a sound in the back of her throat. "My father romanticised everything. How do you think a book written about a female hunter would've gone down in 1900?"

"Not such a best-seller," Charlie agreed, thinking about it. "So, all that stuff … it didn't happen –?"

"Not in the way he wrote it," the hunter told her bluntly. "The order was investigating the Wicked Witch of the East and I – I kind of stowed away. Got left behind." She looked away. "I was looking for an adventure but it wasn't an adventure. It was a nightmare. One I couldn't wake up from."

Charlie watched expressions pass like shadows over her face.

"How is it that you know those books so well?" Dorothy asked her, the deliberate effort to push those memories aside visible in her expression. "It's – what year is it? Now?"

"2013," Charlie told her, shrugging as the woman's eyes widened. "Big reader when I was a kid, and my Mom was too."

"They're still being published?"

"And how," Charlie said, a little defensively. "They're classics, timeless classic adventures."

"Being there, it wasn't like the books," Dorothy said, her tone slightly patronising. "People died. A lot of them. The witches of Oz were all-powerful and even Glinda and Locasta aren't entirely 'good' witches, you know. They have too much vanity about their power."

"Kind of ruining my childhood here," Charlie said, looking away.

"Sorry but that's the truth." She walked to the console, looking at the screen. "Haggerty should've updated the files, even if he couldn't find me."

"He did," Charlie said, turning around and hitting a button to scroll through the open file. "He worked on the file until he retired."

"Stop there," Dorothy reached out to touch the screen. "Go back, what was that about the poppies?"

"_The poppies of Oz are similar, both biologically and in chemical construction to the poppies of Earth, but are much more powerful_," Charlie read, skimming down the screen. "_The opiate content is as much as ten times as strong. Piermont and Harrison brought back samples for the apothecary in 1938. The samples were distilled and stored for future need_." She turned around and looked at the hunter.

"Will that work on the witch?"

"Yes, she couldn't come into the fields, not even to get me," Dorothy said slowly. "We can't exactly gas the bunker, not without putting everyone out –"

"If it's a distillate, we can target her precisely," Charlie said, thinking of the workshop. "Come on, I've got an idea."

"But you're not a legacy and you're not a hunter?"

Feeling her mouth tighten a little with determination, Charlie shook her head and headed for the door. She didn't know what she was, really.

"Where's the apothecary?" Dorothy asked, hurrying after her.

"One floor down, the workshop is at the other end of that level."

* * *

><p>The dungeon was locked, dark and silent and Sam hit the switch by the door, the locks opening as the lights came on. Walking in slowly, guns out and cocked, they heard Crowley whistling softly as they opened the door. Sam's mouth twisted up as he recognised the tune.<p>

"Well, if it isn't the Scarecrow and the Tinman," the demon said with a smirk. "Your new house-guest popped by … so misunderstood."

"What'd she say to you?" Sam snapped.

"Something along the lines of …" His face contorted into a grimace as he hissed at them.

"Alright, well, I'm going to get some holy oil and a lighter, dickbag," Dean told him curtly, half-turning back for the door.

"I know what she's looking for," Crowley said quickly, fingers steepling in front of him.

"What does she want?" Sam asked.

"I'd be happy to tell you … as soon as I get to stretch my legs," the demon said, lifting the manacles around his wrists.

Dean looked at his brother, seeing Sam's agreement without surprise. He walked to the demon and unlocked the collar with one hand, the other keeping the edge of Ruby's knife blade firmly against Crowley's throat. From the corner of his eye, he saw Sam shift into position, gun raised and aimed.

Crowley stood up and stretched, exhaling noisily as Dean backed away and sheathed the knife.

"Alright," Sam said tightly. "What does the witch want?"

"Give me a mo'," Crowley said, eyes narrowing. "Still need to air myself out."

Dean didn't hesitate, he drew and fired, the bullet punching through Crowley's shoulder almost on the last word.

"I think you're aired out enough," he said, staring unblinkingly at the demon.

"Rude," Crowley said, looking at the hole in his suit. He picked up the ball of paper on the table in front of him, smoothing it out and holding it up.

"Key?" Sam said, reading the single word on it. "What key?!"

"Haven't the foggiest," Crowley admitted, shaking his head. "Had to send her off on a merry chase … before she could melt me." He looked up and at smiled at them. "Told her you boys kept the keys in the kitchen – you do have a kitchen in this crap hole, don't you?"

"Sit down," Dean growled, walking back to him.

Relocking the collar around Crowley's neck, Dean glanced up at Sam who nodded. They left the room, the doors locks engaging as Sam hit the light switch.

"What kind of key?" Sam asked as they ran down the hall for the staircase.

"And to do what with it?" Dean added, taking the first flight four at a time.

* * *

><p>The kitchen was a shambles, food thrown everywhere, the fridge door open and hanging from one hinge, crockery smashed across the tiled floor and every drawer pulled out, contents spilled.<p>

"Dammit," Dean breathed, staring at the mess. "I just cleaned here!"

Sam looked at him. "Really?"

He moved across the room, feet pushing aside the debris. Following him, Dean swung around abruptly, gun raised as Charlie and Dorothy came in through the butler's pantry from the dining room, releasing the trigger with a roll of his eyes.

"Sorry!" Charlie said, lifting her hands. "We found something! It won't kill the witch but it'll stun the crap out of her. Poppy extract from Oz. I made up new bullets."

She waved the revolver in her hand and dug into her pocket. "There wasn't much of it, enough for four bullets," she added, pulling out two and handing them over to Dean. "So you need to make every shot count."

"That's my girl," Dean said, popping the magazine of his auto as he passed the second bullet to Sam. He loaded the single bullet in the top and slammed the clip home.

Sam ejected the clip and pushed the bullet into the top of the magazine. "She's looking for a key," he said shortly.

"How do you know that?" Charlie asked.

"Little birdie told us," Sam brushed her off, looking at Dorothy. "Ring any bells, Dorothy?"

"Yes. Unfortunately," she said, her gaze dropping to the floor. "There is a key, to Oz. The wizard had it – it was guarded." She shook her head. "The key was – is – magical, spelled to draw the dimensional planes close enough to turn any locked door into a gateway to Oz. She wants to get back there." She looked up at them. "She has an army, and if she can return, she will be able to overrun the wizard's forces and decimate the population."

"Why would it be here?" Sam glanced at Dean and back to her. "Why with the wizard?"

"I don't know," she said, shaking her head. "Something … something must've happened while I've been here."

"What's this key look like?" Dean asked.

Dorothy pulled out a small leather journal from her jacket, undoing the strap that held it closed and flipping through the pages. She stopped and turned the book around, holding it up for Dean and Sam to see.

"I've seen this," Dean said, struggling to remember where the hell the small box he'd seen it in was located on the two levels of collections. "It's in the collections …"

Sam looked at him, thinking of the thousands of boxes those levels held. "Tell me you remember exactly where."

Dean shook his head, frowning as he remembered the box in his room. "No, I took it upstairs, it was one of a few pieces that didn't have backgrounds to them and I was looking for more info on them."

"So where is it?" Dorothy asked, looking at him.

"In my room," Dean said, glancing at Sam. "Charlie and me'll get the key, you two make a lot of noise and buy us some time."

He turned and watched Sam and Dorothy go out into the hall, reaching out and catching Charlie's shoulder. "Charlie."

She turned around and looked up at him expectantly.

"Safest place in this joint is the dungeon –"

"You have a dungeon in this place?" she cut in, only half-surprised by the admission. "Of course you do."

"So maybe you should …" he trailed off, shrugging.

"I am not hiding! Especially in a dungeon!" she said, fighting off her disappointment that he thought that was the most suitable place for her. "Wicked witch? A key? A quest!?" The thought of it banished her doubts and she smiled at him. "Let's do this!"

She leaned forward, slapping his shoulder in an awkward burst of camaraderie, then swung away to stride out the door.

"Ch-Charlie," Dean said, looking after her, mouth twisting down in annoyance as he realised that common-sense wasn't going to cut it.


	8. Chapter 8 No Place Like Home

**Chapter 8 No Place Like Home**

* * *

><p>Walking through the situation room, Sam followed Dorothy as she looked around curiously. "I can't believe I've lived here for seventy-five years," she said, her tone a little derisory. Not that she'd <em>lived<em> here, she thought.

Looking over her shoulder at him as she climbed the steps to the library, she asked, "How long have you called this place home?"

Sam hesitated and shrugged. "We've been here for a bit under a year. My brother calls it home, me … I …uh … I haven't had that much luck with homes."

"Me neither," Dorothy said, slowing as she looked around the shelving that lined the high-ceilinged, long room. "Overrated idea, if you ask me," she added, turning back to look at him. "I'll take the open road any day of the week."

He saw her eyes widen as she looked past him, her mouth opening in warning and her gun flash up. Sam dropped to the floor as she fired over his head, twisting around to see the witch flinch back from the hit, a puff of deep red smoke emerging from the bullet hole. She began to spin, impossibly fast, dissolving into a dark emerald smoke and ribboning up to the ceiling to disappear into a vent.

"She can get anywhere from there," Dorothy said tightly. "Do you want to split up? Cover more ground?"

"You're out," he said, gesturing to her gun. "We'll stick together."

He started for the staircase, wondering if the damned witch would be going up or down.

* * *

><p>Charlie looked around as Dean opened the door. "I see you moved in," she said lightly, looking the display of weapons on the wall, the neat desk with it's laptop and desk lamp and photographs, the rack of albums and the old style gramophone. Dean's room had been personalised and her eyes widened a little as she realised how much of him was in here.<p>

Watching her look around curiously, he felt a jolt of discomfort as he realised what she might figure out about him and turned for the small wooden crate he'd brought up from the collections level.

"You keep your porn meticulously organised but not –"

He lifted the crate from the floor to the table, looking at her. "Don't judge me."

The crate held more than two dozen small boxes, and his fingers flew over them, opening and closing, glancing into each. "Charlie."

"You find it?" She put the magazines back and turned around.

"No, not yet," he said, flicking a glance at the box in his hands and looking back up. "What happened on the salt and burn?"

"Nothing," she said, walking away from the bureau to look at his albums. "Nothing I couldn't handle."

"You get hurt?"

He watched her stop, her hand resting on the edge of the gramophone.

"Not much."

"Hunting alone's a good way to die young," he said, looking back at the contents of the crate.

"My choice, Dean," she countered defensively. She could feel his disapproval and couldn't help reacting against it. "I might not be good at it yet, but I'm learning."

"On your own? That seem smart to you?" His face was serious, brows drawing together.

She couldn't look at that expression, lifting a shoulder in a shrug.

"I thought you were intelligent, thought you were smart enough to know when you needed help. You think I've got so many people in my life I can afford to keep losing them?" he asked her.

She turned around, not sure what to make of the tone in his voice. "I'm not living my life according to what you think I should be doing, and I'm not quitting so that you'll feel better!"

The frown deepened to a scowl and he looked away. "You want to hunt, fine! I'm not telling you not to, all I'm saying is do it smart, don't just think you're gonna be alright because you won't be – you got no experience, you don't know what's out there, or what do with it if you did!" He dragged in a breath, straightening to look at her. "You know how long it took me and Sam to get competent – not _good_, just competent –?"

"Yes, I do," she snapped back at him, his words stinging with their load of truth. She _knew_ it was stupid to try to do this alone but she didn't know anyone who needed a partner or wanted a rookie hanging around. "You grew up with it, I know, I read about it, I get it!"

The knowledge she had of them, of _him_, hit him again and he looked away, reaching back into the crate and nearly yanking the lid of the next box off as he shoved back at the tumultuous mix of discomfort and guilt, frustration and regrets swamping him.

"Reading about it isn't the same as doing it," he told her sharply.

"No, it's not," Charlie agreed suddenly, her shoulders slumping in acknowledgement of that unpalatable truth as she looked at him. "I want my life to mean something."

"It does mean something," he said, frowning. "You don't have to do this."

"No." She took a step toward him. "But I want to."

He looked at the box in his hands, opening the lid. The key was there, and he pulled it out.

"Yahtzee," he said softly, fingers closing around it as he looked up. "No one's questioning your courage, Charlie, it's your experi–"

"Dean!" Charlie yelled, her eyes huge in her face, staring behind him.

_Crap_, he thought, spinning and diving to the floor in the same motion, feeling the scrape of long nails along his scalp as he realised he had nowhere to go, the bed on one side and the wall on the other.

"No!" Charlie felt for her gun, panic rising as she realised she'd left it on the bureau behind her, and the witch was reaching for Dean, her eyes glowing green and a flickering emerald light building in one fist.

Looking up, Dean drew in one leg and slammed it out, his boot hitting the hag in the stomach and throwing her backwards across the room. He rolled to his knees, hand curling around the grip of the auto, when she reappeared next to him, and the sharp nails stabbed into his gun hand, carving three deep lines through his arm, the gun falling as his nerves were paralysed when they dug in deeper. He twisted away, trying to ride the cross-cut she aimed at his jaw, and he felt her pluck the key from him as he fell into the corner of the nightstand, the unyielding timber corner cracking into his skull.

A vertiginous spiral of black was sucking him down, and he struggled desperately to stay in the here-and-now. He heard a gasp somewhere nearby, saw a greenish light through the thickening curtains of darkness that were trying to shut out his vision, getting one eye open in time to see the witch draw back her arm, a nimbus of poisonously green light and crackling power surrounding her hand, the acrid smell of magic, of burning metal and fried oxygen, filling the room.

She was going to hit him with that zap, the thought pounded insistently at him, and that'd be the end of it. He forced his arm to straighten out, ignoring the searing pain that shot up to his shoulder at the movement and saw a shadow flash past, outlined, burned through, in the bolt the witch flung, hitting the wall and falling to the floor as his hand found his gun and rocked onto one knee.

The witch was turning when the bullet hit, high in the centre of the chest, her shriek bouncing off the walls as a puff of red smoke burst from the bullet hole. He fired again, but she was already spinning, cold radiating through the room as she seemed to dissolve into a thick green and black mist that twisted up from the floor and into the vent.

_Fuck_. Dean saw Charlie lying crumpled at the foot of the wall, the broken and splintered remains of the table she'd hit on the way down under her.

He dropped to his knees beside her, acutely aware that he couldn't breathe properly as he turned her head, looking for an injury, something _(not a witch's killing power)_ to explain her stillness … his thumb rested against the thin skin of the side of her neck and he waited, not wanting to believe, the seconds ticking by and his senses registering nothing.

"Charlie?"

In his mind, the shadow flashed past again, between him and the light the witch was generating, the power to kill that'd been meant for him. _No one's doubting your courage_, he'd said, and he ducked his head, eyes closing. He slid an arm under her shoulders, the other under her knees and picked her up, knowing that boneless, lifeless feel, still trying not to believe it.

_One day, you're going to tell me what happened to you. _

He thought he'd have the time.

_Are you ever going to trust me?_

"Charlie, come on," he said, easing her onto the bed, pushing aside the strands of hair that'd fallen over the side of her face as her head rolled to one side. "Come on! Goddamn it, Charlie! Don't you be fucking dead!"

_The little sister I never wanted._

"Dean?"

"Zeke!" He looked up as Sam swung through the open door, gun lowering and eyes narrowing. His brother straightened up, the angel taking over immediately.

"You have to help her," he said to Ezekiel as the angel walked into the room and looked at the woman dispassionately.

"She's gone."

"I know that!" he grated, shaking his head in frustration. "You have to bring her back!"

"I cannot keep doing that," Ezekiel said coolly, a warning implicit in his tone.

"Why the hell not?! You did it for Cas!"

"You know where the power I have comes from, Dean," the angel told him, his face cool and distant. "It is not infinite and every time I must draw on it, it weakens both your brother and myself." He looked at the woman lying on the bed. "Which means I must stay in your brother longer than you want, longer than we both want."

Dean swallowed against the thickness in his throat as he fought with the knowledge that the angel was right. His gaze dropped, jaw muscle jumping at the point of his jaw as he thought of the possible repercussions … more lies, more mistrust, sooner or later his brother would figure it out.

"The witch running around in this place is very powerful," Ezekiel continued calmly. "I can help with the witch – or I can save your friend."

Dean looked down at Charlie and the choice was no choice at all. He couldn't keep losing people. He couldn't let another person die who'd been trying to save him. Not another fucking one. He looked back at Ezekiel. "Save her."

Ezekiel looked at him for a long moment then inclined his head. "As you wish."

Watching him move around the end of the bed, Dean felt the shiver start in his stomach and worm its way through him. He was risking Sam, risking the angel healing his brother, risking destroying an entire other world if the witch used the key to return, for this one decision.

Ezekiel knelt beside the bed and leaned over to lay his fingers against Charlie's forehead, and Dean set his teeth hard together. He could figure something else out for Sam and Ezekiel, and maybe they could still get the witch, but he couldn't, he _wouldn't_, cut another person who cared about him loose.

His gaze flicked from Charlie's pale and unchanged face to the face of his brother, the power that had flowed easily when Ezekiel had resurrected Cas was not there now, he realised. The angel was struggling.

Charlie sucked in a huge breath, jack-knifing upright and Ezekiel was flung back, disappearing as Sam hit the bureau against the wall, his head bouncing on the timber drawer fronts, eyes closing as consciousness fled.

"Merry Christmas," Charlie said abruptly, looking around. To her right, she could just make out the outline of a man, a familiar man, standing by the side of the bed. Staring at him, his expression seemed … complicated, she thought blearily.

"Charlie," he said, leaning closer.

"Hey … I know you," she told him, eyes narrowing and widening as she tried to focus on him.

"I told you to stay in the dungeon," he said, the exasperation in his voice mostly held back.

"I bet you say that to all the girls," she muttered, her gaze cutting away from the look in his eyes.

"Dean?" Sam opened his eyes.

"Sam, you okay?"

"What the hell just happened?" Sam asked, leaning back against the bureau and rubbing a hand over the side of his head.

_Here we go again_, Dean thought tiredly, looking over at him. "The witch was here," he started, thinking of how to keep as close to the truth as possible. "She was about to put a whammy on me, and … uh, Charlie took it instead," he said, looking down at her briefly then back to his brother. "She got zapped, then, uh, the witch got the drop on you, when you came in."

Sam got to his feet, looking around, his brow furrowed as he tried to remember, his brother's account sounding strangely thin.

"Then why aren't we dead?"

"That's a good question," Dean said, immediately agreeable. "I clipped her with a poppy bullet, but she got the key, I think she's gone."

"No."

All three turned to look at the door, at Dorothy standing there. "She's wounded. We have time, she could still be in the air vents."

Shifting her legs to the edge of the bed, Charlie swallowed against the surge of nausea she felt with the movement, swaying a little as she nodded in agreement. "She's right, we have to get … get …after …"

"Whoa, whoa, Charlie, stop." Dean stepped forward and caught her arm as she teetered on the edge of the bed.

"Just go!" Dorothy said to him, walking in to stand beside Charlie. She nodded reassuringly to Dean as he let go of Charlie's shoulder, her eyes flicking to Sam. "We'll catch up."

"Sam, my gun … it's over there," Charlie said, her eyes screwing up as she tried to remember exactly where 'over there' was, waving her hand vaguely at the opposite wall. "There's one bullet left."

Looking at Dean, Sam reached out to pick up the revolver, the two men walking out together. Sam passed the gun to his brother as they turned into the hallway.

Dean gestured sharply left, and Sam followed him, both with weapons drawn.

* * *

><p>"Who's Zeke?" Sam asked as they turned down toward the main stairs.<p>

God, just five minutes without the fucking backlog of lies coming back to bite him, Dean thought ferociously, his eyes closing for a moment.

"What?"

"When I came into your room," Sam said slowly, barrel swinging right as they came to a cross-corridor. It was empty. "Before I got zapped, I thought you said the name 'Zeke'. Who's that?"

"Um …" Dean slowed, checking both directions as the hall ended in a T, not a single damned idea occurring to him to explain that. The angel couldn't have wiped that one second window before he'd taken off? "Look, you're still a little punchy, man, just keep moving."

He watched Sam shift to point as they moved along the hall, and with his brother's back to him, his face twisted up in frustration. How long before the whole fucking lot came down, he wondered bleakly? Before all the total crap he'd been spouting for the last few weeks caught up with him and Sam remembered the inconsistencies, or Charlie did, or Cas? Forget the fact that he was just mouthing trash with every new question, not even plausible trash at that.

_There's a fucking lethal witch running around here and you're worrying about this?_ The snide voice in his head said with the same edge of anger. _Get your head in the game or Zeke'll have to bring _you_ back and you won't be able to lie your way out of that one_.

Lengthening his stride, he caught up with Sam, shunting his thoughts aside as they checked doorways, closest and rooms, looking for the witch from a parallel dimension known as Oz.

* * *

><p>Charlie lifted her head from her hands as Dorothy knelt in front of her, handing her a damp washcloth. She held it against her forehead and felt the nausea retreat, the dizziness begin to fade.<p>

Looking down at the hunter, whose expression was, for the first time, she thought a little disbelievingly, warm and caring, she felt uncomfortable. Most hunters took a blow to the head – or anywhere else – without all these side-effects. She wondered if Dorothy's expression was genuine or if the hunter thought her weak. "I had the weirdest dream while I was out, it was Christmas and my parents were still alive –"

"Dream? Charlie, you died," Dorothy said gently.

"What?" Charlie looked at her. "No, no. What makes you think I died? Dean said –"

"If the witch zapped you, that's it," Dorothy said, getting to her feet. "Instant death. I should know, she killed me."

"Wait a minute, let's just – let's rewind a little here," Charlie said, looking around. "I think I need a paper bag. How did you die? That wasn't in the books."

Dorothy shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket, shrugging. "I told you, my father romanticised what happened to me in those books. The bones of the story are there. I went to Oz, sure enough, but not in a tornado and I didn't kill the Witch of the East by dropping a house on her. That wouldn't have worked in any case, you know."

"Oh."

"When I realised that the legacies and the hunters had left without me, I was … terrified," she said, her eyes a little distant with the memories. "I was twelve and being hunted by the Palace Guard, because the wizard wanted me. The Emerald Revolutionaries were after me as well," she continued. "Three of them found me, and they looked after me, protected me. They told me that the wizard had issued an alert to find me because he thought I knew how to get back to our world. That was something my father kept in the books, the great and powerful wizard was a charlatan. But he didn't recruit me or my friends to kill the witch. We had no intention of trying any such nonsense, to be honest. We were working on sabotage plans, burning the witch's forest, trying to convince Locasta to help us."

She sat on the edge of the bed and looked at the floor. "It was a trap that got us, and the witch was vindictive. She made an example of my friends and she killed me."

"If your father wasn't there, how'd he know about all this?"

"I told him, when I finally got home," Dorothy said, turning to her with a rueful smile. "My own fault that those stupid books were published, I gave him all the material."

"But if you died …"

"Locasta turned up. The trap the witch set for us was relayed to her by another cell of the revolutionaries and she arrived and brought me back, and took me home. I found out that the kiss was protecting me, and I went back to Oz a few years later, against my father's wishes and the order's, got to the castle and caught the old bitch and bound her tightly. But we couldn't kill her and we tried everything. Finally, the wizard made the whirlpool because it was getting harder and harder to keep her bound within the spells, and I came back here."

Shaking her head, Charlie looked at her. "I can't believe that."

"Oh, you can," Dorothy said with a sigh. "My father used to say that within every fairytale and myth and legend there was a kernel of truth, but the layers that built up on the outside get more fanciful and fantastic with every re-telling and every century that passes. He was right about that."

"This binding spell, what do you need?"

"Nothing you have here, all the ingredients are from Oz," Dorothy said distractedly. "Sam looked in the apothecary on the off-chance someone had been back but there's nothing there."

"Alright, back to the books."

"Charlie, I told you those books are useless –"

"No, they're not," Charlie said, getting gingerly to her feet and taking a step when there was no return of the dizziness. Death carried a powerful kick, she thought, but luckily a short-lasting one. Another thought hit her. Why had Dean brushed off what'd happened? "Haggerty deconstructed all of them, trying to find a way to kill the witch and to find you again and your father wrote some clues, maybe even for you, in them."

"What are you talking about?"

"The poppies were in those books, Dorothy," she pointed out, following the hunter to the door. "It's very possible he found other things to guide you, or to protect you or things that you could use to fight her." She turned away, heading down the hall for the library. "Preferably something with a pointy end."

"Pointy end," Dorothy repeated, standing next to the door. "Pointy!"

"What?"

"Come on, we need the garage," Dorothy said, waving an arm as she turned in the opposite direction and ran for the stairs.

"The garage?" Charlie chirped, hurrying after her.

* * *

><p>"Next level up?" Sam asked, looking around. Dean nodded. They'd been right through this one and the one below, and all the vents on those levels had been blocked with spellcord and jessamine. The witch wouldn't be able to cross through them. It was going to take hours to go through the entire building, he thought, rubbing a hand over his face as he tucked his gun back into his belt, but at least they could either trap her in the ventilation system which would buy them some time to figure out how to kill her, or she'd confront them before they locked her in. As long as they were moving, he thought she'd keep moving as well.<p>

"Why the hell didn't she just leave when she got the key?" Dean wondered aloud, his footsteps thumping on the stairs. "Why stick around and risk getting trapped in here again?"

"Got me," Sam said. They were on the fourth level, he realised. The apothecary, workshops and store-rooms led off the hall here.

"Where do you want to start?" Dean turned his head to look at Sam as he moved down the hall, and saw his brother's eyes widen in shock. _Not again_, he barely had time to think before he was dropping to the floor and rolling aside, the crackle of the witch's power filling the hallway with its bright, burning stink.

He felt the brush of her robe as she swept over him, and rolled to his feet, his gun in his hand as he watched her sweep aside Sam's frantic attack and reach behind him, nails driving into his neck. She lifted the other hand and he saw the familiar light forming in it.

"Sonofabitch." He couldn't fire without the danger of hitting Sam and he was damned if he was going to give the bitch the opportunity to throw the whammy again. Accelerating across the few yards separating him from them, he heard Sam's deep grunt as he launched himself into his brother, weight and speed taking all three of them down in a messy sprawl across the floor.

The witch leapt to her feet, crouching beside Sam, her fingers driving into his face and scalp, burning through the layers of conscious Sam easily as the connection embedded itself. Dean shook his head, rising to his knees, and she turned, her right hand curling over his head, the nails digging in, and a second connection made before he could move.

"Find the women." Sam's blank expression matched his voice, emotionless, without inflection.

"Kill them both." Dean intoned in the same droning tone, nodding as he rose to his feet.

Inside the vessel, Ezekiel found himself bound and gagged by the control over Sam. He was weak, too weak to fight the commands that were looping irresistibly through Sam's conscious thoughts. Wrapping himself around the soul in his care, he closed his eyes and waited.

* * *

><p>The long, concrete-floored room echoed with their footsteps as Dorothy and Charlie climbed the short flight of stairs and Dorothy hit the lights.<p>

Looking around, Charlie let out a low whistle. No way Dean knew about this, she thought in amazement, looking at the vintage cars and bikes in their slots along the walls. He'd've been talking about it non-stop if he'd ever seen this. The elevator had brought them down here, four buttons pushed together for this level. The building had more tricks than she could've imagined.

"Yes! I knew those boy-scouts would keep it for me," Dorothy smiled as she looked down the wide aisle and saw the bike parked in its own slot near the end.

Charlie followed her as she hurried to the Excelsior, the trim 1930's bike gleaming as if it had come off the production line the day before. Dorothy bent to the panniers held to either side of the rear wheel and pulled out what Charlie thought at first, was a helmet. Then she noticed the eyes behind the lenses.

"Is that –?"

Dorothy looked down at it and nodded. "Yeah, he didn't make it."

She turned back to the panniers, muttering under her breath.

Charlie's eyes widened as Dorothy straightened up and turned, a pair of glittering red shoes held in her hands. Walking out from around the bike, Dorothy passed one of the shoes to her.

"I don't believe it," Charlie said, looking down at the sparkling, heeled shoe in her hand. "Did you actually walk down a brick road in these?"

"Nah, I never actually wore them," Dorothy said, looking at hers. "Seemed kind of tacky wearing a dead woman's shoes," she added, nose wrinkling up. "And I'm no good in heels, you know?"

"I don't suppose that wearing these will let us just wish her away?" Charlie suggested wistfully.

Dorothy gave her a withering look. "Sorry, no. But they're from Oz and they were her sister's, and they have their own magic. The witch cannot touch whoever is wearing them."

"That doesn't get us any closer to killing her," Charlie said, sighing as she looked at Dorothy. "Where did your father get the idea that water could kill the witch? In the books, he said it was because she was so old, and her blood had dried up, the water simply dissolved everything that was left."

Dorothy nodded thoughtfully. "He never told me that, never mentioned to anyone where that idea had come from."

"But the witch, I mean, she's not all dried up, so water wouldn't hurt her," Charlie mused, mostly to herself. "And … she is capable of changing from a solid state to a gaseous state, without the interim step of changing to liquid."

"What?"

"It's just that very few thing in nature do that," Charlie said distractedly, the answer so close to her she felt as if she might be able to reach out and touch it. "I mean, dry ice does …"

She looked at Dorothy. "Oh, blerg."

"What?"

"Dry ice is sublimated in water. That's what he meant," Charlie said fast, turning around and heading for the stairs. "Didn't you try water?"

"Well, no," Dorothy snapped, following at her heels. "I mean, it was ridiculous."

"It would be ridiculous if she was flesh and blood but she didn't bleed, did she?" Charlie said over her shoulder. "And it wasn't just adhesion, it was the freaking ice changing from solid to gaseous as soon as the water hit her."

"How can she be frozen!?" Dorothy demanded incredulously. "She moves around."

"How could she turn a normal man into a living, breathing tin man?" Charlie shot back. "The whole world of Oz operates on different physical laws to ours. Different laws, different outcomes, different … everything. The southern kingdom was populated by people made of porcelain!"

"Good point."

"There you are."

Charlie skidded to a halt as Dean and Sam climbed the steps toward them.

"Great timing, guys, look we need water –"

"No, you need to die," Dean said tonelessly to her, reaching out.

"Charlie, put the shoes on! She's possessing them, she won't be able to hurt you if you're wearing them."

"But they will!" Charlie squawked, backing away from the man in front of her. "Guys, I know you're in there! You have to fight her, fight her control!"

"They can't hear you, Charlie," Dorothy said, backing away with her, her gaze flicking from side to side in search of a weapon she could use against two men who were larger, stronger and probably faster.

"Dean! You can't let her do this," Charlie said, hopping backwards as she tried to yank her trainer from her left foot. "If she opens the door, she's going to destroy Oz!"

The trainer flew off as Dean reached out and grabbed her, and she barely kept hold of the slipper when she was lifted and he smashed her back into a window, the pane and glass falling around her, her head ringing from the impact.

"I have no intention of escaping to Oz," Dean said, his eyes fixed on her face. They were cold and empty and unbearably creepy.

"I'm going to bring my armies here," Sam told Dorothy, advancing toward her.

Sweeping aside Sam's longer reach, Dorothy ducked and spun, her fist snapping out and hitting Sam on the jaw. She bounced backward as she saw his head flick back, the blow doing nothing at all to slow his forward progress.

"Don't worry," Dean said to Charlie, releasing her arms and taking a step back from her. "You'll join Dorothy right after you watch her die."

She watched him turn his head to look at his brother, the witch's attention off her now, Dorothy's death more important. She whispered, "Sorry about the 'nads, Dean."

Leaning back against the windowsill, she figured she'd get one short stride in. She was right. She stepped forward and swung her leg back and up, the top of her foot hitting Dean between the legs squarely, her face screwing up as she watched his eyes roll back in their sockets and his slow motion collapse to the floor.

_Apologise later_, she told herself furiously, running past him toward the door.

Dorothy reached out for the steel jack handle as Sam turned his head to look at his brother. When he turned back the bar hit him under the jaw and he catapulted backward, breath driven out as he landed hard on his back. Dorothy scrambled to her feet and threw the second ruby slipper at Charlie.

"Go! Put them on! I'll buy you some time!" she shouted at the slender redhead, swinging the bar in one hand and getting the feel for its weight and length as Sam and Dean got to their feet and began to advance toward her.

"Alright," she said, reversing the bar and shifting her weight. "Let's see what you boys are made of."

* * *

><p>Charlie heard the roar of the storm as the elevator let her out on the first floor, looking frantically around for a bucket … a fire hose … a freaking jug, she thought in desperation, anything that would carry enough water to change the frozen carbon dioxide of the witch into gas and dishwater. She leaned against the wall of the kitchen, her gaze scanning the chaos as she pulled her other trainer from her foot and thrust her foot into the slipper. There. In the corner, the big pot lay on its side. It even came with a handle. She ran across the kitchen, the smooth soles of the slippers skidding on the broken glass and china under them, heels clicking on the tiles.<p>

As she staggered down the hall toward the library, she thought the noise was coming from the situation room. Closer, she realised as she turned through the doorway. The witch had used the key on the front door, and the vista beyond it was a long view of a roiling, bloody sky, a sinister black castle on a hillside in the distance and sweeping plains stretching out around it. The colours were too bright and too lurid for real life. _Technicolour_, she thought distractedly, switching hands as the pot got too heavy for the left.

_I am protected from the touch of the witch_, she told herself as the slipper's heels tapped up the iron stairs. _I am right about the water._ Dorothy's father was a legacy of the order and he'd never have slipped up on that, she thought, even if he hadn't been able to leave the clues in plain sight. The reassurances weren't doing much to slow the pounding of her heart or stop her throat from drying out, but she kept on with them. Dry ice. Solid to gas. Sublimation. _Check_.

Through the doorway, Charlie saw the shapes against the sky, hundreds of them, witches flying in formation, monkeys with the wingspans of condors, all heading this way, and she dragged in a deep breath. Fate of the world hanging in the balance … _check_.

The witch turned around faster than she'd thought possible, the long, filthy nails driving for her face and then stopped. She grinned slightly as the witch looked down and threw back her head in a silent scream of frustration.

"Gotcha," Charlie murmured, lifting the pot and throwing the water over her.

Clouds of freezing cold steam rose from the billowing black cloak, filling the gallery, filling the room. Charlie backed away, coughing and hacking.

* * *

><p>Dean looked at his brother in confusion, Sam's arms wrapped tight around Dorothy's ribs and neck. He looked down at the knife in his hand, wondering what the hell he'd been about to do with it … then his nervous system let him know what else had happened and his eyes rolled back again as he dropped to the floor, the knife clanging on the concrete.<p>

"Dean?" Sam let go of Dorothy, his head pounding, his jaw aching. "What the hell happened?!"

"You were both possessed by the witch," Dorothy explained as Sam knelt next to Dean.

"What happened to _him_?" Sam looked from his unconscious brother to her.

"Oh, Charlie kicked him in the jewels to get away," Dorothy told him prosaically. She looked up, her mouth curving up in a smile. "But she did it, Sam. She killed the witch."

* * *

><p>"You killed the wicked witch and got the key," Sam said, a slightly derisory one-sided smile crinkling his eyes as he looked at her. The other side of his face was bruised and swollen from being hit with the jack handle.<p>

"And that is how it's supposed to be," Charlie said smugly. "How's Dean?"

"Um, well, he's, uh, resting," Sam said, looking away. "He'll be fine."

"Can I see him?"

"Sure, yeah, I guess," Sam hedged, uncertain if his brother was going to be all that pleased to see her while he could still feel the effects. "You could take up some painkillers."

Watching her walk back to the kitchen, Sam hoped Dean would be too out of it to repeat what he'd said about her on regaining consciousness.

He turned to Dorothy, handing her the book he'd found. "This, I think, belongs with you."

She smiled down at it, her expression rueful. "Do you have any idea of what it feels like to have your life laid out in someone's idea of a fiction novel?"

"Yeah," Sam said, his gaze cutting away. "Actually, and unfortunately, I do. But, at the end of the day, it's our story and we're the ones writing it, right?"

"I guess," she said with a sigh as she tucked the book into the satchel hanging by her side. "You got anything to eat here? I've never been so hungry."

"Kitchen's a mess, but we could take a look," he said, waving an arm toward the library. "There's a lot to catch up on. Seventy-five years."

She glanced sideways at him as they walked up the stairs. "I can't stay."

"Why not?" Sam slowed, turning to look at her. "The witch is dead, Oz is safe, isn't it?"

"There's a revolution there," she told him, shaking her head as she wondered if she could even explain all the things that made staying impossible. "Even with Mortisia dead, the evil that plagues that world is still very much active. I have … debts … I need to pay, and I told the wizard that I'd come back."

"It's not your world," Sam said, his forehead creasing up doubtfully as he considered that.

"No, but it's my life," she told him quietly. "And I have friends there, people I care about, who care about me. That's the closest thing I'll ever get to a real home, I think."

He slid another surreptitious look at her, seeing her face calm and relaxed as she walked beside him.

"What about the open road?"

Glancing at him, she smiled briefly. "In Oz, I get both – adventure and a place I belong."

"Hmmm."

* * *

><p>Charlie opened the door a little, peering into the darkened room. "Dean?"<p>

"Huh."

The half-grunt came from the bed and she walked in, leaving the door a little ajar to allow the light from the hallway to spill into the room.

"Come to see your handiwork?" Dean muttered, shifting slightly away from her on the bed.

"I'm sorry!" Charlie burst out, looking at him. "You were the one who told me to take any advantage and go for the weaknesses!"

"Yeah," he mumbled. The nausea was still there, churning through his guts, the deep and unremitting ache in his abdomen pulsing faintly in time with his heartbeat. "Didn't mean on me."

"You were going to kill me," Charlie argued flatly, sitting on the edge of the bed. Close to, she could see his skin was waxy, shadows like bruises under his eyes, and her defensiveness faded. "I brought some more painkillers."

He brightened slightly, holding out his hand for them. Pouring a glass of water from the jug on the nightstand, Charlie passed it to him as he swallowed the pills.

"Really hurts, huh?"

He gave her a stony look. "There are no words."

"Sam said you got the witch," he added a moment later, eyelids half-closing as the pain began to recede, letting him breathe a little more deeply.

"Yeah. Got the key back as well." She looked at him, her brows drawing together a little. "And by the way, Dorothy told me that I died. Which means you somehow raised me from the dead!"

He looked at her, reaching automatically for a lie. "Uh, I didn't –"

"Don't BS a BSer!" she said, leaning forward. "Am I a zombie now? Do I need to eat brains?"

"No!" Dean said, frowning. "No, you're you. You're gonna be fine."

"Then you can explain it?"

"Uh." He looked away, mouth compressing. "No, not right now."

"Dean."

"Look, it's complicated," he said uncomfortably. "It's to do with Sam, and I –"

"I _knew_ there was something eating you about Sam!"

"Yeah, well, congratulations," he told her dryly. "You got me pegged."

"I do, you know," she said. "I care about you, and I won't let you down."

He looked away, hearing Charlie's deep sigh.

"I know you don't want to hear it, but it's true," she said with a small shrug. "You have no idea of how good I am at carrying secrets, and I've never let any of them loose."

It wasn't that he didn't want to trust, he thought, eyes closing at the half-entreating, half-defiant tone of her voice. It wasn't that he didn't want to tell … someone … about what was happening, to him, to his brother, to the fucking world if he couldn't figure it out and set things right.

The silence grew. Charlie looked down at her hands, folded in her lap. She liked Sam and in many ways, they got on better than she could ever hope for with his older brother. But there was something that she couldn't let go of, something that made her feel as if, with the right words or in a different time, she could have a friendship with the man lying beside her that wouldn't be full of holes and secrets and the things neither of them could ever talk about to anyone else.

"I'll go," she said finally, getting up.

"Wait – wait a sec." Dean's hand snapped out and caught her wrist, his breath hissing through his teeth as pain returned with the sharp movement. "Sam – I told you what happened at the church."

It wasn't a question and she nodded, sinking back down onto the bed and looking at him. On the drive over, she'd managed to get some of the details of the trials out of him, right up to the point where Sam had agree to stop the third trial and had, Dean'd thought, accepted that he didn't have to die to atone for everything.

"He collapsed, just before the angels fell," Dean said heavily, his voice thicker, rougher, with the memories. "I got him to the hospital, but the doctors – they all told me he was dying and it wasn't a matter of if, but when."

Charlie felt her throat tighten and she looked down at the coverlet. Even without the books, it didn't take a genius to know how he would have felt about that.

"I was desperate and Cas wasn't answering and I sent an all-stations to whatever angels could hear me," he continued. He stared at the wall, not trying to fight the memories and the emotions that came with them, feeling the tight bonds that he'd been holding in place for weeks begin to loosen, incrementally and almost unnoticeably.

"Uh, a few showed up, most of them wanting to kill Cas, but one of them offered to help. He saved Sam, and we got out of there."

"But that-that's good, isn't it?" Charlie whispered.

"He saved Sam by possessing him," Dean said bluntly, turning to look at her finally. "And I had to-to-to go into Sam's head and c-convince him to consent to me."

"Sam thought …" her voice trailed away as the implications rocked through her. "You can't tell him the truth?"

"Sam … Sam would never've agreed to another possession, Charlie," Dean told her tiredly. "Not by anything but definitely not by an angel. He would've died first."

She nodded, thinking of the books at her Topeka apartment. She'd read every one of them, more than a dozen times now, and she knew what Lucifer had done to Sam, and to Dean.

"So you have to lie to him – and everyone else?"

"The angel – uh, he says if Sam knows he'll chuck him out, and if he gets chucked out before Sam is healed, Sam'll die."

Not even a rock and a hard place, Charlie thought unhappily. More like a rock and a massive freaking vice.

"So, um, the angel brought me back?" she asked, looking at him uncertainly.

He nodded. "I asked him to."

And that had been a whole other decision-making process that had freaked him out, he thought, lifting a hand and rubbing it over his face.

Charlie didn't know what to say. He'd _asked_ an _angel_ to bring her back.

"Why?"

He looked over at her, mouth twisting to one side a little as he took in the confused look on her face.

"Because you're the little sister I never wanted," he answered her, his tone flippant – and a warning not to ask any more, she thought – but his eyes steady on hers.

"Anyway, I can't – he can't find out, not until he's completely healed," he said, the look vanishing from his eyes and leaving her wondering if she'd even seen it there.

"What happens then?"

"The angel vacates the premises," he said, his gaze cutting away again. "And Sam and me are back to business as usual."

He wasn't certain it was going to work out that way, she thought. She wouldn't have been either.

"If he finds out …" she said quietly, and stopped as he nodded, turning back to look at her.

"Yeah, so he can't, no matter what," he said.

"Not from me," Charlie promised. "I'd better … get back down there."

He watched her get up, walk slowly to the door. "Uh, Charlie?"

Turning, she looked at him. "You need something?"

"Yeah, more ice."

Her head ducked as she nodded, going out the door and pulling it closed behind her.

His heart was beating a bit too fast, the sickening ache in his gut pounding along with it. It'd taken every bit of control he'd had to tell her, to put his trust in her and he wasn't sure he did … trust her … but he couldn't deny that it had lessened the load, by a small amount, couldn't ignore that somehow, through an unknown alchemical process, he felt less alone.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Two Days Later<strong>_

Dean walked carefully around the car, trying not to favour either leg. The pain had gone, the psychological impact remained, at the edges of consciousness, making him a feel a lot more fragile than he was comfortable with.

The Impala sat in the centre of the aisle, clean and gleaming as he polished out the last of the wax on the front quarter panel. He looked up as Sam came up the stairs, followed by Charlie and Dorothy.

"So, everything the order had, up to 1958, is in the computer, and it's now accessible," Charlie said to Sam. "The catalogues, the books, all of their files. I wrote a search program for the database and tidied up their indexing and compression algorithms a little, it's good to go."

"Charlie, that's unbelievable," Sam said, looking at her over his shoulder. "The access is portable?"

"Absolutely," she said, making a vague gesture behind her. "The new laptop has the access codes and passwords, but you can also connect through that lawyer's office if you need to."

Dean rubbed off the final smear of wax and leaned lightly against the car, watching them approach.

"Looks good, don't she?"

"Like she belongs here," Sam agreed readily, looking along the line of vintage cars the garage still held, an immaculate '57 Thunderbird, late 40's Sprite and a gleaming black '33 Studebaker Commander 8. The cars and bikes would keep Dean's need to fix things to perfection satisfied for the rest of his life, he thought, hiding a smile.

"You heading back there?" Dean forced himself to walk straight as he met them.

"Yes," Dorothy said, glancing down to the Excelsior. "You mind keeping an eye on my bike?"

"Yeah, sure, as long as you don't mind me taking it for a spin once in a while," Dean countered, mouth tucking in one side at the prospect.

"Deal," Dorothy agreed readily. Her smile faded as she looked from him to Sam. "Thank you. For everything."

Charlie watched them, seeing clearly for the first time the fact that neither of them really felt comfortable with being thanked. Made it easier when they didn't get any, she thought disparagingly.

"Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a rebellion to finish." Dorothy said, turning to look at Charlie. "Do you still want adventure?"

"Real adventure?" Charlie asked. "The sort that has magic and doesn't require six hours of grave-digging or two hours in the ER afterward?"

"Only kind I'm interested in," the hunter said with a shrug. "Come help me find my damned dog."

"Charlie," Dean said, stepping closer to her, not liking this development one bit. "Not a good idea. You have no idea what kind of things are in Oz, with the-the-the flying monkeys, and-and the evil forests and, just so you know, magic is not all it's cracked up to be –"

"Promise?" she cut him off, looking at him as Dorothy snorted softly beside her. "This is what I was looking for," she said, looking from him to Sam. "Something meaningful."

"Charlie –"

"No," she said firmly, closing the distance between them and hugging him tightly.

"I'm not hunting alone anymore, Dean. And this is what I want," she whispered against his neck. She felt his arms tighten slightly around her, then relax.

"And if you need anything," Sam said, grinning at her as he enveloped her in a hug. "Just tap your heels together three times."

"If I need –?" Charlie said as he drew back, throwing a look at Dean. "What about you crazy kids? You'll be alright without me?"

He shrugged, and she saw that the shell he lived with was already back, fitting snugly around him.

"Take care of yourselves, bitches," she said, lifting her chin as she looked at him. Beside her, Dorothy turned for the wide, double doors set into the wall at the end of the garage and Charlie turned with her, her heart hammering at the base of her throat.

Taking out the key, Dorothy inserted into the lock and turned, pushing the door wide. Charlie couldn't help the gasp that burst out when she looked through, brilliant green fields, a bright road twisting away from them, paved in bricks of deep golden yellow, and in the distance, spires and towers scintillating in the morning sun, a city of emerald glass and stone, beckoning to her the way nothing had in her entire life. She didn't look back as she walked through the door and felt the ground change beneath her feet, leather soles clocking softly on the brick. The air was different, rich and fertile and filled with scents, soft and balmy against her skin.

She realised she was walking away from everything she'd ever known, and she slowed, feeling Dorothy's glance on her as she looked back. Lit up by the sunshine of Oz, Dean and Sam stood in the doorway, Dean's eyes meeting hers, that connection she'd been waiting for, that she'd been hoping for, finally there.

_Typical_, she thought, smiling at him. Now_ he trusts me_.

She turned away and walked down the yellow brick road, stride for stride with Dorothy, hardly aware of the clunk of the doors closing behind her.

* * *

><p>Dean looked at the solid doors in front of him, then glanced at his brother. Sam nodded and they pushed the doors open again, nothing but the wide, curving tunnel that led from the underground garage up to the street level visible.<p>

"Think she'll be back?" Dean asked Sam.

Sam reached for the door handle, pulling his side closed and waiting for Dean to do the same. "Of course," he said. "There's no place like home."

"Really?" Dean's brows lifted fractionally.

Sam gave him a sour look and turned back to the interior of the garage, heading for the stairs that would take them to the elevator.

"And by the way, how it is possible that your geek brain didn't figure out the extra levels in this place?"

"What?" Sam demanded. "How come you didn't figure out the elevator cable was at least twice as long as it needed to be?"

"I was busy," Dean said loftily, smiling slightly as they passed the Impala. "You were the one who insisted on looking at every square inch and you missed, like … hundreds of feet!"

"I was busier," Sam argued. "And you told me that Dad told you that you should know the exact layout of every place you have to hole up in –"

"Ah, don't bring Dad into it."

"You started it."

They'd agreed tacitly on a truce as the elevator stopped in the hall behind the situation room, Dean remembering the state of the kitchen and wondering if it was too early to go out to get something to eat, and Sam striding fast toward the library to see the laptop Charlie'd set up for him.

Both stopped at the sight of Kevin, tousled and yawning, standing in the middle of library.

"Wow, I really crashed," the prophet said, scratching his head and looking around. "I miss anything?"


	9. Chapter 9 If Only They Could Talk

**Chapter 9 If Only They Could Talk**

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

_Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. _

_Sam knelt on the floor of the tiny confessional, his head bowed over his folded hands. Dean frowned as he saw his brother through the filigreed scrollwork of the screen between them._

"_Sam, wait – I'm not – I'm not supposed to be hearing this –" he started to say, the words cut off by a high-pitched drilling sound, driving into his ears, into his mind, rebounding in the hollows in his skull. "Jesus! Stop!"_

"_I have killed, Father. I have tortured. I have followed a path of darkness and consorted with evil. I have –" Sam's voice droned in the cubicle, and Dean shook his head, hands pressed hard over his ears, eyes screwed against the sound that was getting louder and more piercing._

"_Goddamn it! STOP IT!"_

"_I have betrayed. I have broken trust."_

"_Do you repent of your sins, my son?"_

"_Yes, Father," Sam said. _

_Light flooded the confessional and Dean twisted away from the screen, throwing an arm up over his face. "SAM!"_

"_You are absolved and forgiven of your sins, Sam Winchester."_

_Dean heard the voice, directionless and omnipresent, rattling the timbers of the tiny cubicle._

_The light brightened, flooding into him through the solid flesh of his arm, through his tightly closed eyelids, reaching into him and illuminating every cell, every thought, every memory._

_Then it was gone._

_He shuddered, lowering his arm slowly, his pulse thundering in his ears in the complete silence and darkness. His brother had vanished._

"_Sam!" He clambered to his feet, pushing against the narrow door. "Sam?!"_

"_Dean Winchester, are you ready to confess your sins?"_

_Flinching back against the wall, Dean looked around, peering through the screen. No one sat on the other side._

"_What?"_

"_You can be forgiven."_

_He backed into the corner, looking from the screen to the door, understanding distantly that there was no one else there, that he wasn't hearing that voice with his ears. What kind of mindfuck trick was this, he thought furiously. Crowley? One of the angels dicking around at his expense?_

"_Do you repent?"_

_Did he _repent_? _

_The inanity of the question raised his hackles. He'd spent the last four years trying to make up for the filth that coated him, deep inside where he couldn't get rid of it, only to feel himself layered in more and more as the years had gone by._

"_You can be free of your burden."_

"_Bullshit," he muttered, looking around._

"_Do you seek forgiveness?"_

"_I …" he stopped, gaze dropping to the floor as the question spiralled down into him, a falling light that was illuminating the depths he tried never to look at. _

_He'd paid enough, hadn't he? Paid for the choices, paid for living when he should have died. He was so damned sick of trying to find a way to live that didn't crush him with memory. "For _everything_ … everything I've done?"_

"_Everything," the voice that wasn't a voice, that he couldn't hear with his ears, that slid through him and saw everything, confirmed._

_He took a step forward, and dropped to his knees, looking at the narrow ledge in front of him. "Yes," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "Yes," he said again, clearing his throat, the word coming out more strongly. "Bless me –"_

Snapping upright in the bed, Dean stared wide-eyed into the blackness of the room, his heart galloping in his chest, sweat dripping from his hair in droplets he could feel falling on his arms, the big muscles of his shoulders and back twitching and rolling as if he'd touched a live wire.

_What the _fuck_?_

The clock on the nightstand showed three a.m., its soft greenish glow letting him see the outline of the lamp above it, the rucked sheets along the edge of the bed. Swinging his legs over the side, his toes curled as they touched the floor, solid, real beneath them.

The heat that had flushed through him a moment ago had gone, leaving a dull ache and a bitter chill inside and he got up, shivering a little. Snapping on the lamp and trying not to acknowledge the reassurance that the warm, golden light gave him as he looked around the room. He didn't ask himself what he was looking for. Crossing to the bureau, her dragged out two of the drawers and grabbed clean clothes, forcing himself to keep moving, not thinking, across the room and out the door.

The bath was next door and he blinked in the brighter overhead light, tossing his clothes on top of the elaborately carved timber chest next to the sink and stripping off his sweat-sour and dripping tee shirt and shorts, leaving them in a wet pile in the middle of the tiled floor. He reached into the shower recess for the taps. The building's hot water system was good and as steam curled above the etched and bevelled glass screen, he stepped into the recess, feeling the chill dissipate under the hot flow, the last shreds of the dream blasted from him as he ducked his head under the water, grabbing the soap and washing himself compulsively from head to foot.

The blood had been burned out of his brother, he thought, tipping his head back and feeling the cascade sluice over him. Sam was normal. More normal than he'd been since he'd been an infant.

Now it was just him. The freak. The monster with a human face. It didn't matter that he knew the things that he'd done, the choices he'd made, those had been under duress, with no other option in sight. The holes he felt, the wasteland, the emptiness inside, that had come from something different.

He pushed the thoughts aside impatiently, turning around under the water and twisting the taps off.

_You don't know what you're doing, Sam._ He'd been trying to get his little brother to see reason.  
><em>Yes, I do.<br>_Sam's response had hit like a hammer, shaking him somewhere so deep he couldn't take a breath. _Then that's worse._  
><em>Why? Look, I'm telling you—<br>Because it's not something that you're doing, it's what you are!_ He'd shouted that at Sammy, his father's words screaming in his head. _It means—  
>What? No. Say it.<em> Sam had looked at him steadily, his expression tight.

_It means you're a monster._

Leaning against the tiled wall, his eyes screwed shut as the memory replayed, too clearly, too fucking vividly. _If you can't save him, you're gonna have to kill him._ There was no way he could do that. Not then. Not any time. He knew what being a monster was all about. And every morning, every single damned morning, he woke, thinking that this day, today, he could do something to wipe out that darkness. He would do something to pay for what he'd done. Something that would let him die in peace. Something that would leave him finally clean.

But most days, that didn't happen. And some days, he thought he made it worse.

Stepping out of the shower, he grabbed the thick towel from the rail, drying himself off quickly. He dressed fast, dragging on jeans and a tee shirt, tugging the long-sleeved shirt over that, careful not to catch a glimpse of himself in the mirror as the steam evaporated from the gleaming surface. Throwing the towel over the shower rail, he walked out and headed for the stairs, bare feet nearly soundless along the polished wooden floor.

A single lamp burned in the library and he glanced around, seeing empty tables, weaving around the last to reach the sideboard. The clink of the crystal stopper seemed loud and sharp in the silence of the building, and he replaced it more carefully, picking up his glass and swallowing a mouthful of the amber fluid, a soft roar of warmth in his throat finally dissipating the remaining chill.

He walked over to the small group of armchairs that flanked the now-clean hearth, dropping into the nearest and leaning back. Weird-ass dreams were going to kill him, he thought, keeping the rest behind the growing wall of numbing heat the whiskey brought as he downed another mouthful. What he needed to be thinking about was the how the hell they were going to get the frequencies of the angels that had fallen globally so that they could track them across the country and keep Cas out of their way.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Des Moines, Iowa<strong>_

Shadows, mauve and indigo, clung to the trees and filled the narrow paved paths, the birdsong was yet to begin and the city's lights were lit, spectral with the first glow in the sky. Two men stood where the winding path widened, one short and round, in baggy tweed trousers, a dull-coloured cardigan over a pale blue shirt, unkempt brown hair brushed back from a high forehead and a salt-and-pepper beard hiding the weak chin . The other was tall, a tailored suit hanging elegantly on a wide-shouldered and well-built frame. White hair, cut short at the back and sides, framed a face too young for it, although the eyes were older, pale grey, watchful and cold.

The short, portly man drew the lapels of his knitted cardigan closer, looking over the still flat waters of the pond. "They don't even appreciate this, most of the time," he said.

Beside him, the taller man shrugged the comment off.

"The angels have fallen and have begun to gather, and they have been stirred sufficiently to believe the angel is the cause of their current situation," he said, putting his hands into his pockets. "Just as you foresaw. There is sufficient leverage to motivate the factions, both angelic and … other."

"We cannot be seen in this gentle art of manipulation, Forrester," the short man said, his voice sharp. "That is of the utmost importance. How certain are you that you can feed the information to the firm?"

"Very certain," Forrester said, smiling at him. "You can trust me, you know."

"I thought I could trust others of your kind, and found I'd been mistaken."

Forrester laughed softly. "Saint-Clare? He was delusional."

"Delusional and powerful," the portly man said, a little bitterly.

"Live and learn," Forrester remarked. "Don't worry about the firm, or the order. Larry was the only one we needed to be careful with and he's dead."

"Yes," the short man said, turning to face him. "Which brings me to another sticky point. How do you propose to control her?"

"I don't," Forrester told him, pulling a phone from his pocket. "One of the great advantages of the twenty-first century is the dissemination of information. All I need to do is nudge a little here, provide some accurate intel there, and she – and all the rest – will do their jobs without requiring any other help."

He looked up, feeling the other man's stare on him.

"I sometimes wonder if you're not a little too good at your job, Forrester."

Forrester smiled again. "This is your story," he said. "My presumption doesn't go so far as to forget it."

"I'm glad to hear that."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

Sam looked down at his brother's big frame, sprawled loose-limbed in the armchair, hair spiking in every direction, his face relaxed in the balm of deep sleep. He leaned forward to rescue the crystal tumbler from the precarious two-fingered grip and set it down on the table behind him, backing away soundlessly to turn and walk out of the library, heading down the hall to the kitchen to make coffee and breakfast.

He'd had no idea Dean was still having nightmares. Months of not sharing a room or the car had desensitised him even to the idea of it, he realised uncomfortably, and all the rooms were thick-walled enough that it would take screams to penetrate them.

Leaning against the counter as he absently filled the coffee pot, he realised that the shadows that seemed to fill his brother's eyes most of the time had been present since the day Dean'd dug himself out of the cheap, pine box and shallow grave he and Bobby had buried him in.

His brother had told him a little about Hell and what had happened there. The soul-tearing despair that'd poured out with that brief telling had been more indicative of the damage done than what he'd said.

_I wish I couldn't feel anything, Sammy. I wish I couldn't feel a damn thing._

He'd never heard Dean sound like that. Not before. Not since. And there'd been nothing he could say or do to change it, to make it easier or somehow lessen the load that his brother had been carrying.

_Your Hell is gonna make my tour look like Graceland._

The memories had been bad, Sam thought, but Lucifer and Michael had been angry and spiteful and frustrated. There'd been no end goal. No planned escalation of pain, physical through the memories of the body, mental through the memory of mind, emotional through the soul itself. When he'd gotten what'd really happened to him clear in his head, he'd realised that there'd been nothing personal in any of it. Just … mindless rage, really. And somehow that'd been easier to deal with. He wasn't sure how.

Lucifer had told him all about Dean's time in Hell. In graphic detail. Horrific detail, the devil thinking – _knowing_ – how it would affect him. Alastair had torn his brother apart and put him back together personally, Hell's master of torture finding every crack, every weakness, and reaming it for all the agony he could.

There'd been no purpose to what he'd suffered through, but there'd been a method to what had been done to his brother.

So much had happened, so many bad things had happened, he'd missed the way that Dean had kind of papered over his crushing pain, his bone-deep guilt and the deep wounds both had left in him, year by year, covering it up a little more, burying it all a little deeper.

Shaking his head as he filled the reservoir and turned the pot on, he felt a stab of guilt for not seeing it happening, not paying attention to what Dean had been doing. He knew that was the way his brother dealt with the things that were too painful to face. He knew it and he'd let him drink a little more, stress a lot more … withdraw.

_I'm a grunt, Sam. You're not._

God, how could he have missed that, what had lain _behind_ that. He'd brushed it off at the time, not believing it and not seeing that Dean _had_ believed it. His brother had never cried _poor me_ in his life.

Straightening up, he reached into the cupboard for the mixing bowl, setting it on the counter and walking to turn the burner and broiler on, taking out a heavy iron skillet, then turning for the fridge to get eggs, bacon, butter and milk.

What the hell could he do about it? The walls had been thick four years ago, now they were gargantuan, hiding his older brother's feelings about … _everything_ … and letting the poisons seep out only when Dean slept, defenceless and vulnerable, or in those shadows that lurked behind so many of his waking expressions.

Was that what he'd been hiding, he wondered suddenly. A resurgence of the emotions he'd been not dealing with? How the hell was he ever going to get Dean to admit to that?

He broke eggs and watched them slip from the shells, whisked and tipped in milk, turned the bacon and set bread in the toaster, his hands moving automatically, a scowl creasing his brow as he realised he'd known, he'd recognised why Dean had needed Cas so much and had let that knowledge slide by like all the rest. And Dean had let Cas go. He still didn't understand that.

"Coffee."

He looked up, smoothing out his expression out as his brother appeared in the doorway, eyes still half-shut.

"Where's Kevin?"

"Asleep, I guess," Sam said, gesturing with his elbow at the full, burbling pot. "Just made, help yourself."

Glancing sideways at him, he watched as Dean pulled down a mug from the shelf, half-dropping it on the counter with a resounding thump, lifting the pot from the burner more carefully and filling his cup.

Sam cleared his throat. "How 'bout you? You sleep okay?"

Dean lifted the pot back and set it down gently, picking up the coffee and blowing over the hot, black liquid before he answered.

"Woke up thinking I had a lead on something, turned out to be a figment of my imagination," he said, turning away for the island counter. "That sucked."

"So you were, uh, researching, last night?"

"Trying to," Dean corrected mildly. "Fell asleep in the library trying to figure out how to key the god squad frequencies to the computer."

"Huh." Sam poured the batter into the skillet, pulling out a flatter pan for the eggs. "'Cause, um, the computer's got the frequency range in its memory, you know," he said diffidently. "We just need to figure out how to retrieve it and use it for a different purpose."

"Oh."

Resisting the impulse to turn around and nail his brother with that slip, Sam chewed on the corner of his lip as he flipped the pancakes and stirred the eggs.

"Kevin should be able to figure it out, when he's up," he said as lightly as he could. "You want to go and see? Tell him breakfast's ready?"

"Sure."

He heard the mug clunk on the counter and footsteps head out of the kitchen and up the hall.

Two plates were set out, bacon, eggs, pancakes and toast sending tendrils of steam into the air when Dean returned.

"Where's Kevin?" Sam looked up as he set syrup and ketchup between the plates.

Lip curling, Dean shook his head. "He's in the office. Hand on the tablet."

"Which one?"

"Didn't get close enough to check, but I think it was the angel tablet, 'cause he was muttering 'lawful' over and over." He sat down in front of the more heavily loaded plate and looked it over gratefully.

"That rules out working on the angel tracking problem then," Sam said, his breath gusting out as he pulled out a chair on the other side of the table.

"Can't you look through the, uh, computer's memory and find them?" Dean asked through a mouthful of food.

Sam shook his head. "Charlie set it up to use ASCII, a low-level language, to interface between the order's dinosaur and ours. Kevin knows it. I don't."

"Well, good."

"Good?"

"You could take it easy for a couple of days, till Kevin's back on deck, just rest up," Dean said, picking up his coffee.

"I am rested up," Sam said, waving his fork for emphasis. "I'm not the one who's getting up in the middle of the night … to do research."

Dean looked away, tipping the cup up. "Well, you've been pretty much running on empty for awhile now."

"I feel good," Sam said firmly, stabbing at his food. "And I think I found something, report came in over the wire this morning." He gestured to the open laptop sitting on the end of the counter.

"What?" Dean turned reluctantly to look at the brightly-lit screen.

"A job," he said, starting to slide off the stool.

"A job," Dean repeated, heavily. He could feel Sam's impatience to discuss it. "Finish your damned food. We can look at it when you're done."

Sam tapped the keys, glancing sideways at his brother, sitting in the next chair, back to him, feet propped up on the table edge.

"You going to listen, at least?"

Twisting slightly toward him, Dean waved a hand.

"Taxidermist named Max Alexander, mysteriously crushed to death, nearly every joint in his body dislocated, every bone broken, uh, poor guy's a human pretzel," he said, talking fast as he realised Dean was already resisting the idea of taking this on. "You tell me what's got that kind of strength?"

"Demonic luchador?" Dean offered facetiously, wondering how to defuse his brother enough to stay put for a couple of days at least.

Zeke hadn't been kidding with the either/or last week and despite the fact the angel had said that the soul was continually replenished, he'd already wondered if he shouldn't've offered the angel his own to touch and recharge from. Cas had done it with Bobby. It hadn't killed the old man.

"Store's four hours away, in Enid, Oklahoma," Sam said patiently. "We should at least check it out. Unless there's some reason you think we shouldn't."

_Ah_, Dean thought, _perfect, throw another fucking impossible curve at me, I love them_. He could barely keep up with the crud he'd been throwing back to explain the dozens of fucking inexplicable things that had happened every time Zeke came out of hiding.

"No," he said, feeling the lack of sleep suddenly crash down on him. "No reason."

"Good."

"Fine."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Enid, Oklahoma<strong>_

The rear parking lot was full and Dean eased the Impala into a half a slot, the tires sitting on the grassy verge. They got out and looked around, smoothing out the creases in their suits as they walked through the county and state vehicles.

"Cops, coroner, local funeral home," Sam muttered, as he passed them. The service and delivery door was set into a glass and steel frame, a neat white decal over the window proclaimed that Mounted Treasures had been established in 1967. Over the decal and the window and most of the door, another slogan had been painted, thick, dark red letters dripping with the amount of paint ladled on.

DIE SCUM.

"Subtle," Dean commented dryly as they got closer. Sam saw the small, inverted triangle in the top angle of the final 'M' and peered at it.

"Check that out."

Dean looked at it. In the centre of the triangle, there was a paw print, stylised. He glanced at his brother as he pulled out his phone and took a picture of it. He'd never seen it before, but it looked more like a logo than a hex mark.

The crime scene tape was positioned about eighteen inches from the store's rear wall, taking in the graffiti, and they ducked under it, Dean using his knuckles to push the door open as he saw the fine powder coating it. The firm had taken care of the state and federal databases holding their details months ago, but after years of having to keep a mental track of what crimes they were wanted for in which states, he'd decided that being cautious was not necessarily a sign of encroaching age, but accumulated wisdom.

Inside, the spacious room was wall-to-wall stuffed animals. And not the sort that sat fatuously on the ends of teenage girls' beds.

"Well the creep factor just skyrocketed," he said, looking from the glassy-eyed buffalo standing beside him along the walls of heads, whole bodies and in one glass display, stuffed and elaborately costumed dead vermin.

"Whoa, gentlemen, this is a crime scene," the local deputy said, stepping away from the counter and holding up his hands, blocking the doorway to the next room. Dean instantly felt a flash of impatience for the young man. Kid looked like he only needed a razor once a week, he thought, repressing the impatience and forcing his features into what he hoped was a pleasant and professional expression.

"Agents Michaels and de Ville," Sam said quietly, pulling out his ID and holding it up. Beside him, Dean did the same, looking past the deputy to the man leaning against the counter behind him.

"Body's already gone to the morgue," the deputy said, shrugging a shoulder in the direction of the other room. "Just wrapping it up with Dave Stevens. He's the one who discovered the body." The deputy dropped his gaze as his emotions overtook his professional reason for being there. "Such a shame, I used to go huntin' with Max. He was a real good egg."

"Sorry for your loss," Dean said automatically, ignoring the usual small double-take his brain did whenever he heard the word outside of the context he was used to. "You mind showing my partner around? I've just got a couple of questions for Mr Stevens."

"Uh, well, sure, come on," the deputy said, turning away. Dean watched Sam follow him through the doorway, noting that Sam's radar was on full alert. He walked to the counter and held up his tin.

"Mr Stevens? Just got a couple of questions for you, if that's alright?" he said, injecting a little more sympathy into his voice as he noticed Steven's reddened eyes.

Dave Stevens turned to him, his face pouched and sorrowful. "I'll tell you whatever you need to know," he said, voice cracking a little. "Max was a real pal."

"Hunting buddy?" Dean offered and Dave nodded agreeably. "So what time did you find the body?"

"Nine a.m." Dave sniffed. "My usual pick up time. I come in every Monday and Wednesday to collect the entrails."

_Entrails_. Dean registered the word as an image popped into his head to match, along with the list of uses he knew applied to them. Divination, transference rituals and summonings were the top three.

"Strange thing was, bins were empty this morning, that's why I came into the store," Dave continued. "And found him."

The deputy appeared behind Dave and Dean looked over the man's shoulder at him. If it was the entrails that were needed, why break in to kill Max, he wondered distractedly.

"Anything else missing?"

"No," the deputy shook his head. "Cash register was closed out, but that's normal for a weekend. Safe's intact, and the trophies have been inventoried. Max still had his wallet, personal belongings. It wasn't a robbery."

"And the door lock was definitely broken?" Dean asked the cop. "Not, uh, opened from the inside?"

"Nope, busted to hell."

"Anyone else here when you showed up?" He looked back at Stevens.

"No. It was empty," Dave answered, turning around. "I mean, except the Colonel."

Looking past him, Dean saw the dog, a full-grown German Shepherd, waiting patiently as Animal Control took his collar and hooked on a lead. Sam came out of the room, walking fast and Dean nodded to the deputy and Stevens.

"Thanks for your help, if you'll excuse us?" He turned and followed Sam to the rear of the store. "Anything?"

"No. You?"

"We got a thief who doesn't take valuables but is jonesing for animal parts, we got a pagan symbol, maybe, and we got a human pretzel," Dean summed up the dearth of information on the job so far. "Whoever did it took the entrails."

"Yeah, it all sounds like it's leaning toward witchcraft, but I didn't find a hex bag – or symbol – or circle that could've directed it."

"Could be on the body?"

"Could be in the body," Sam countered, nose wrinkling up at the thought. "The deputy said the body went to the morgue."

"Okay, next stop formaldehyde city." He looked down at his suit. "Then the dry-cleaner, I guess."

* * *

><p>The motel was tired-looking, an L-shaped building running around a square parking lot, the sign grubby in the growing twilight. Despite the cash in their wallets, it was the best they could do, the only one in town with a vacancy.<p>

"Nothing in or on the body," Sam said, hanging his plastic-bagged suit in the closet. "Are we ruling out witchcraft?"

"No. Maybe. I can figure taking the guts for some spell or ritual to be done at a later time, but why break in and kill the owner?" Dean asked, pulling a beer from the fridge and opening it. He needed something to eat, the chemical stink invariably made his stomach twitch and the only way to stop it was to put something in it.

"It's a good question," Sam said, sitting down at the table, and pulling out his laptop. He opened the screen and brought up a search engine, then plugged his phone into the port and transferred the image to the search bar.

"Okay, that symbol in the graffiti on the window? Not pagan. Local animal rights group," he told Dean as the image matched with a website and a couple of dozen other hits.

Dean walked to the table and looked down at the site. "Snart?" He skimmed over the page. "You gotta be kidding me."

"Well, most animals rights groups have a thing about taxidermists."

"Why?" Dean looked at him, brows drawing together. "Animals are already dead."

"Yeah, but hunters will keep him in business," Sam said, gesturing at the site.

"So? Do they burn down the bakery because the wheat farmers're using an insecticide? I mean, come on," he said irritably, turning around and going back to the fridge to check for the second time if there was anything edible in it. Talking about bakeries had been a mistake. "Whole fucking world is illogical."

Sam blinking at his brother's sudden vehemence. "Uh, you okay?"

"Hungry."

"Oh." He shook his head. "The question is … are those bleeding hearts actually witches … or do they just have way too much free time?"

Dean turned around. "Can we debate the ideological aspects in the car on the way to get something to eat?"

"Sure," Sam said, glancing at his suit. "You want to check out the group at the same time?"

Dean followed his gaze, shoulders slumping. "You're joking."

"Not so much," Sam told him with a shrug, pulling off his shirt and t-shirt and reaching for the freshly cleaned white business shirt again. "FBI don't do a lot of canvassing in jeans."

* * *

><p>"I can't eat here," Dean said, staring at the sign above the store, 'Gentle Earth Vegan Bakery'.<p>

"We don't have to eat here, this is the contact address for the listed members of S.N.A.R.T," Sam said with a long exhale, looking pointedly at the open doors. Dean entered reluctantly.

"What's that smell?" Sam asked, turning around slightly as he caught the peculiar odour.

"Patchouli," Dean supplied caustically. "Mixed with depression," he continued, as he scanned the interior. "From meat deprivation."

Behind the counter, two of the staff serving were wearing wraparound ultra-dark sunglasses and Dean tapped Sam's arm as he noticed them. "Hey, you know who wears sunglasses inside? Blind people …" he told his brother, lip curling up derisively as he added, "… and douche bags."

Sam shrugged, heading to the servery. Dean followed him unwillingly, looking at the food on the tables as he passed. Not one actual, recognisable smell in here, he thought. He was starving but his stomach hadn't registered anything edible in olfactory distance.

"Olivia and Dylan Camrose?" he asked, stopping next to the register and the man and woman in sunglasses turned to him. Slender, pale-skinned with straight blonde hair swept back from her face and a striking bone structure hidden mostly by the glasses, the woman smiled first. Beside her, Dylan, he guessed, was narrow-shouldered, olive-complexioned and with a straggly, thin beard covering his jawline, chin and upper lip. Neither looked particularly healthy.

Olivia glanced at Dylan and back to him, smiling. "At your service."

"You two are members of the group SNART?" he asked.

"Founders and co-presidents, actually," Olivia said, leaning forward and plucking a pamphlet from the stand on the counter "Can we interest you in some literature?"

Sam waved a hand dismissively and Dylan gestured at the domed cake stand next to the pamphlets. "Or a flaxseed scone? It's wheat-free, gluten-free, sugar-free and surprisingly moist –"

"Okay, I'm going to stop you right there," Dean said, staring at the bell-shaped things with suspicion. Beside him, Sam pulled out his badge and he dragged his out, flipping the billfold open. "Uh, we're here to investigate the death of Max Alexander, local taxidermist?"

The couple stiffened together at the name, moving back from the counter perhaps a fraction of an inch.

"He's … dead?" Olivia asked, her head tilting to one side.

"You knew him?" Dean asked, looking at the blank, black lenses of the sunglasses, pinpointing her eyes behind them.

"Ish," she allowed. "Um … small town."

"Well, he was murdered last night," Sam said, staring at her. "And the SNART logo was found at the crime scene."

Dean watched as they looked uncertainly at each other.

"We can do the preliminary questioning here," Dean added, glancing around. "Or we can do it at the field office in Tulsa."

* * *

><p>There was probably no one as respectful of the government's authority as those who kidded themselves they were opposing it, he thought a moment later, pulling out a chair and sitting down opposite the pair. Sam's knees were sticking out to either side of his, the tables and chairs designed for those just a little smaller than the average height. Looking around the room, he wondered absently if that had anything to do with a lack of readily convertible protein.<p>

"What was the beef with Max?" Sam asked bluntly. "He wasn't doing anything to hurt animals."

"His business is supported by hunters, and you know how hunters are," Dylan said disparagingly, looking from him to Dean. Neither responded and Dylan's voice rose a little as he clarified, "They're selfish dicks who define themselves by what they kill."

There were, Dean considered slowly, a lot of times when wearing the crappy suit and carry the stupid badge meant a loss of possible options. While they could, on some occasions, open doors and provide access to information otherwise difficult to get, he was beginning to wonder if that really made up for the times when a plains-clothes approach would be a helluva lot more satisfying, in the long run.

He turned his head to look at his brother. Sam's mouth had thinned out, tucking in slightly at the corners as he caught a glimpse of the expression in Dean's eyes.

"And as animal advocates, we couldn't stand for that!" Olivia added vehemently, apparently oblivious to the unreceptiveness of the agents.

"So … you killed him?" Sam asked.

"Of course not," she corrected him impatiently. "S.N.A.R.T doesn't tolerate violence."

"Huh," Dean said thoughtfully, looking from her to Dylan. "This from a couple who spray paints death threats?"

"It was a scare tactic," Dylan protested. "We just wanted to spook him!"

"Turns out we were the ones who got spooked," Olivia added, her mouth twisting down.

Sam's forehead furrowed as he looked at her. "What does that mean?"

Glancing at her partner, she took a deep breath when he nodded. "Well, last night, when we were tagging the joint," she said uncomfortably. "We heard this noise –"

"A hissing noise," Dylan interjected.

"It freaked us out, so we ran out to the alley –"

"But someone attacked us –"

"Sprayed us in the eyes with mace –"

"And it's not like we could go to the cops –"

"So now we look like total douche bags because we have to wear our sunglasses inside," she finished, looking at Dylan.

He reached up and lifted the glasses off his face, Olivia doing the same beside him.

Both Sam and Dean shifted back a couple of inches as they took the swollen and reddened flesh surrounding both SNART members' eyes. The whites had yellowed, Dean noted, eyelashes were gone, the mottled colouring seemed to follow the pattern of the blood vessels surrounding the sockets.

"You've been to the ER?" Sam asked, leaning forward warily to get a better look.

"They've done tests and swabs, taken blood and practically every other bodily fluid," Olivia snapped, her gaze cutting away from him. "They haven't come back yet, but they gave us something to bathe them with."

"And this was sprayed at you?"

Dylan nodded. "It didn't feel like an aerosol, you know? More like that splat of a pump-pack."

Dean felt his eyebrows lifting and looked away.

* * *

><p>"Necrosis?" Dean turned around to look at his brother when Sam had finished reading out the details from the screen. "So not mace, that only acts on the nerves."<p>

Sam looked at the photographs accompanying the report. "A couple of options – blunt force, radiation or venom."

"I'm gonna take wild guess and go for Door Number Three, Monty," Dean said, dropping into the chair at the table.

Nodding, Sam looked at him. "Alexander was constricted, the vegans heard hissing and the venom was probably spat at them, not sprayed … only problem is that there isn't a snake on the planet that both constricts and is venomous."

"Probably not one on the planet that can open locked doors and take a person by surprise either," Dean pointed out dryly. He leaned back in the chair, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. "So, super-monster snake … uh, we got a whole bunch of pretty nasty worms but mostly in Europe."

"Basilisk or their variants," Sam added, his face screwing up as he ran through his personal database. "But they're simpler, they just turn you to stone."

"Vetala have venom but they like to get up close and personal with their fangs," Dean mused, discarding the monster as soon as he'd thought of it.

Sam shook his head and closed the search screen, bringing up the order's interface and Charlie's unlovely but perfectly functional search form. He entered the relevant details and hit enter. Only one result was returned.

"Huh, the only possibility is an Amphisbaena, from Greece. Two-headed snake that occasionally constricts if one head is in disagreement with the other, ability to spit its venom like a cobra or bite." He shook his head. "They're actually pretty small."

"What about human-based variants?" Dean looked at him. "It went after the guts, but it not only got inside the locked store, it cleaned out a bunch of trash cans."

"There's the shape-shifting variations," Sam said slowly. "Most of them relate to spells or rituals to change form. Two main types, one inserts the human consciousness into the animal," he continued, reading the details of the order's file on animal possession. "The other transfers the attributes of the animal to the spellcaster."

"Alright, let's go with that, for the time being." Dean straightened up in the chair. "How do we find someone demented enough to turn themselves into a snake?"

"Good question."

The police scanner crackled from the table and Sam turned to look at it.

"Dispatch, this is Tango Kilo Lima Three Zero Four, we have another ten-ninety-one. Ten-fifty-five, over."

"Ten-four, Tango Kilo Lima Three Zero Four, what's your twenty, over?"

"Dispatch, we are located at the Animal Shelter down on Polk, over."

"Ten-four, Tango Kilo Lima Three Zero Four, ten-fifty-five on their way, out."

"Dean," Sam said, writing the address down.

His brother opened the bathroom door, releasing a cloud of steam into the room. "What?"

"Another animal attack, over at the Animal Shelter," Sam said, gulping down his coffee as he stood up.

"Any details?" Dean asked, glowering at his suit.

"They called for the ambulance and the ME," Sam said, shrugging as he stripped off his jeans.

"Doesn't sound good."

"No, it doesn't."

* * *

><p>They got there in time to see the body zipped into a black bag and rolled out on a gurney, and Dean shook his head as he came back from talking to the ME.<p>

"Shock, loss of blood, several organs ruptured from deep slashes and puncture wounds," he recapped to Sam.

"All the cats are missing," Sam offered in return, gesturing down the aisle that was lined with cages. He lowered his voice. "Those spells, in the files I looked at from the order, the practitioner generally stays with one type of animal, you need completely different stuff to switch and the strain on the body of the witch is incredible."

"And yet we have a COD remarkably similar to being opened up by a big cat," Dean said, stopping beside a cage and turning to look at him. "Any security footage?"

"No, nothing installed, they didn't regard it a high risk, even with the Camroses' activity."

Dean looked down as the dog in the cage beside him barked suddenly, the German Shepherd staring past them as its lips curled back from its muzzle, revealing a set of long and sharp teeth. A deep, sustained growl filled the room.

He looked around, seeing the deputy coming toward them. The police officer ducked his head, pulling off the wide-brimmed hat as he approached and Dean's gaze snapped back to the dog as the growl ceased abruptly.

"Do you agents need any further assistance?" the deputy asked, looking from Sam to Dean.

"No, officer, I think we're okay," Sam said.

"Well, let me know," the deputy said, lifting his hat and settling it back on his head.

Dean looked down as the dog barked again, the growl coming out immediately.

"Uh, officer," he said quickly, turning to the deputy. "Can I borrow your hat?"

The deputy looked nonplussed, glancing at Sam. Sam shrugged.

"Just for a minute," Dean added, looking back down at the dog as the deputy took it off again. The growl died and Dean took the hat, holding in front of him for a moment. He lifted it slowly, and pushed it on and the dog let loose a volley of sharp, threatening-sounding barks, lips pulled back in a snarl that wasn't the least bit ambiguous.

Dean pulled off the hat and the dog relaxed, its gaze fixed on the lowered hat.

"Thanks," he said, turning back to the deputy and handing him the hat.

"Uh … um, sure, anytime," the deputy said, looking from him down to the dog and turning away.

"I've seen this mutt before," Dean said to Sam, looking at the dog. "And he has one helluva hate on for cowboy hats."

Turning to the paperwork clipped to the side of the cage, Sam flicked up the top page, reading the details.

"This is the taxidermist's dog," he said, looking down at him.

"So, he's been around for two of the attacks," Dean said, crouching down in front of the dog. "Let's eliminate some possibilities."

He pulled out a silver dollar, walking it through his fingers as he looked at his brother. "Most shapeshifters don't like silver."

"I thought you gave that to Charon?" Sam asked.

"I gave the one Dad gave me to Charon," Dean corrected him, looking back at the dog. "Yavoklevich chased me up another one." Reaching into the cage, he set the coin against the dog's skin, behind his ear. "There you go, boy, this won't hurt a bit."

The dog leaned into his hand, watching him placidly.

"Okay, so … not a suspect, how 'bout a witness?" Sam suggested.

"Put him on the stand, he'll probably spill everything for a box of jerky," Dean quipped tiredly, getting to his feet.

Sam shook his head, pulling out his phone and hitting the speed dial.

"Kevin?" He looked at Dean. "He's off the tablet," he mouthed. "Listen, how do we speak to a dog?"

Flicking the phone to speaker, Dean blinked as Kevin's voice snarled out of the cell.

"Are you kidding me, Sam? Are you freaking _joking_!?"

"Uh, no."

"'_Find a way to reverse Metatron's spell'_," the prophet's voice got a bit more shrill. "_'Find a way to kill a Knight of Hell'_!"

"Uh, yeah but …"

"No freaking buts!" Kevin snapped. "I'm not your research assistant. I'm the prophet of the Word and I'm struggling to keep my sanity here, working on not just one but _two_ tablets and you are fucking up the very little time I have to eat and sleep and rest and the whole library here is accessible from your laptop so find the goddamned way to talk to dogs yourself!"

The call cut out and the brothers looked at the phone in Sam's hand.

"Might be a bit too pressure," Dean offered.

"He's probably right," Sam agreed, putting the phone back in his pocket.

"We'll grab some takeout, get back to the motel and see what we can see," Dean decided. He looked down at the dog in the cage. "On the off-chance we find something, do we take him with us?"

Sam followed his gaze, the Shepherd's head swivelling around to look at him.

"Probably a good idea."

"Paperwork's all yours."

"He'll have to ride in the car," Sam countered, watching his brother's brows suddenly pull together at that thought.

* * *

><p>"Dean, give him one of your burgers," Sam said, finishing the sandwich and turning back to the laptop.<p>

"What? No."

On the floor beside them, the dog whined softly again, looking up at him with soulful, pleading eyes.

Sam's hand flashed out and snatched the second burger from the table, unwrapping it and setting it on the floor with a sour look at his brother. The dog ate the burger in two bites, looking up as a pink tongue lolled out and licked around its lips thoroughly.

The look he was getting was almost smug and Dean sighed.

"Alright, I got one," Sam told him, reading through the file on the screen quickly. "Inuit spell. To talk to animals – more or less." He looked around the room. "We need a few things."

Dean got up, feeling in his pocket for the keys. "That box of stuff from the apothecary is still in the trunk."

"Good, I also need cloudberries, the vegan place should have them," Sam said, keeping his eyes on the screen as he heard his brother's groan. "And animal blood, about half a pint, any kind will do."

He heard the door open and slam shut and looked down at the dog. "This better be worth the fallout I'm gonna get."

* * *

><p>The smell of the dirty brown mixture in the bowl was not appealing, Dean thought, watching Sam lean down and pluck a couple of hairs from the dog's rump and drop them into the sludge. Looking across the table at his brother, he wondered how it would affect the angel inside, if the canine conversations would hinder the healing process further.<p>

"So how does this work, exactly?" he asked Sam, watching him stir the mess around.

"It's supposed to be a kind of a human-animal mindmeld," Sam said distractedly, looking down at the spell instructions again and tipping the bowl to one side. "If it works, we should be able to read the Colonel's thoughts. Or hear them."

He tipped the mix into a glass and a waft from the noisome liquid drifted around the table. Dean looked down as the dog snorted and belly-crawled further away. No argument, he thought sourly, looking at the glass. He couldn't risk any kind of danger to either his brother or the angel in residence, and he reached out and snagged the glass as soon as Sam stopped pouring.

"All right, I'll do it," he said, lifting it up to his mouth, flinching back slightly as the smell got worse – a lot worse – close up. "You got enough on your plate."

Sam stared at him. "Like what?"

"Uh … like," Dean hunted around for a reasonable excuse. "You're tired … and you got a sensitive stomach," he added, swirling the filthy mixture around in the glass. "Last thing we need is you upchucking this and setting us back to square one."

He looked down at the glass, ignoring Sam's disbelieving snort. "Doesn't look so bad."

Lifting it, he tipped it up, eyes squeezing closed as it filled his mouth, swallowing hard to get it off his tongue as quickly as possible. He looked at the empty glass for a second then at Sam, feeling his lips thin out as he forced them to remain together with an act of will.

"I was wrong."

Sam watched him uncomfortably as he swallowed a couple more times, chest hitching a little as he fought a battle of wills with his stomach which clearly wanted to eject the mess back out.

Mashing the side of his fist against his mouth, Dean ducked his head, gesturing impatiently for the spell incantation and Sam passed it over.

"_Diala heil mae. Doog arou nagra, letur aram_," he intoned through mostly closed teeth, looking up at Sam as he ran out of words. His stomach heaved again and he looked down at the dog.

"Alright, let's get this party started," he said to the Colonel. "Tell me everything you know."

Sam peered over the edge of the table as well. The Colonel lay on the floor, panting softly, and he opened his mouth to let out a whining yawn.

"What's the matter? Cat got your tongue?" Dean asked, glancing back at his brother. Sam's expression was pained and he shrugged inwardly. He needed these moments of inanity, he was talking to a fucking dog for Christ's sake.

The Colonel sat up, barking once. Nothing seemed to emanate from the dog with the bark. He wasn't getting any meaning from it at all. He looked at Sam.

"Okay, spell tasted worse than African dream root and was a bust," he said, reaching for his beer. "What else you got in there?"

"Not much, I stopped looking when I found this one," Sam said apologetically.

"Well, I'm still starving since you gave Fido here my burger, so I'm going to get something else."

_Get another burger for me too._

Dean looked at Sam. "You want a _burger_? Am I finally getting through to you?"

"What?"

_Not for him, for me._

"What?" Dean looked down at the dog.

"What?" Sam looked at his brother.

Dean stared at the dog. "Shut up! It – he – it's working!"

"It is?"

"He just told me to get him another burger!"

"Well, what are you waiting for?" Sam's brow creased up as he looked from Dean to the dog. "Ask!"

"Can you, uh, understand me?"

_Do I look like the runt of the litter?_

"Uh, no," Dean said, frowning. "What were you trying to tell us about the cowboy hat?"

_The thing that killed my friend was wearing a cowboy hat_, the Colonel thought, slowly and clearly.

"Thing?"

_Wasn't entirely human, although it looked it from the outside._

"Huh."

"What!?" Sam burst out, looking at his brother's thoughtful expression.

"He, um, says it's not entirely human," Dean said, his gaze fixed on the dog. "What about the death at the animal shelter?"

_Same thing killed both._

"Okay."

"Ask about the cats," Sam said, picking up his sandwich wrapping and lobbing it past Dean into the trash can. "What did it do with them?"

"Uh, yeah," Dean nodded, turning around and reaching for the wadded up paper, pulling it out of the trash and handing it back to Sam.

_I don't know. I couldn't see much back there._

"I don't want this," Sam said, looking at the paper and holding it up.

_I didn't exactly have the best view. But I could smell it! It reeked of red meat, a whole bunch of weird scents I haven't come across before, dishwashing detergent and uh, Tiger Balm._

"What?"

Sam lobbed the paper back to the trash can, leaning forward. "So what's he saying?"

"Uh, that the not-quite-human guy," he said, leaning out of his chair to retrieve Sam's lunch wrapper again, tossing it back over the table to his brother. "He, uh, smelled like ground chuck, soap suds and old lady cream, plus a bunch of stuff he's never smelled before."

Sam picked up the paper ball. "Dean! What are you doing?"

Looking at him, Dean scratched at an itch behind his ear. "I don't know!"

The dog chuffed a little, the transference that came through not laughter, but an overwhelming sense of amusement.

"What are you laughing at?" he asked irritably, looking down at the Colonel.

Both heard the van at the same time, accompanied by a distinctive rustle of papers, rubbing together. The Colonel barked sharply and Dean spun around in his chair, eyes fixed on the window.

Sam watched his brother lunge out of the chair and press himself as close as he could get to the glass pane, back and shoulders rigid with some sudden tension, the dog skittering around the edge of the table and pressing its nose to the glass beside him, barking loudly.

"Hey!" Dean shouted, banging his palm on the window. "Hey! Hey, you!"

Sam stared at the two of them, and a long-ago-seen image popped into his head, the familiar Larson Far Side cartoon filling his mind's eye.

"You! You!" Dean shouted at the man in the parking lot, leather satchel over one shoulder and a handful of envelopes in his hand. "Hey! Hey! You! You! YOU!"

Blinking at his brother's behaviour, even the caption came back … _Donning his new canine decoder, Professor Schwartzman became the first human being on Earth to hear what barking dogs are saying …_

He sighed. "Ah, Dean?"

"Hmmm?"

"Not only am I sure the, uh, spell worked," he said slowly. "I think it worked a little too well."

"What?"

"I think … you might be, uh, exhibiting some of the traits that are normally restricted to … um …dogs," Sam said, careful to keep his expression neutral as Dean lifted a hand, and scratched furiously behind one ear as he stared back across the table.

"What!?"

"You're scratching your head," Sam said, picking up the wadded-up wrappers again. "You're barking at the mailman, you're playing fetch –" He tossed the ball past his brother again, and watched as Dean's eyes tracked the ball to the trash can, seeing his muscles twitch as his brother maintained a fixed stare on the balled-up wrapper.

The act of will required to turn back was visible, Dean swallowing with the discomfort of an addict regarding his choice of poison. "Ruh-row," he said unhappily.

"Gimme a minute," Sam said, biting the inside of his lips to keep from smiling. "I'll, um, check this out a bit more."

* * *

><p>Dean got up, walking across the room restlessly. "I'm turning into a dog? Seriously, Sam!?"<p>

"It might not be that bad," Sam said, bringing up the full file he'd retrieved from the order's archives. "Or …"

"Or what!?"

"Uh, yeah, apparently there are some side effects."

"Well, that would've been nice to know before I drank it!" Dean slumped on the edge of the bed and stared at him. "What kind of side-effects?"

"When you mindmeld with an animal, the connection is sometimes, uh, two-way," he said. "You can understand them and … um … relate to what they feel on an emotional and uh, sometimes physical level."

"What?" Dean scowled down at the dog in front of him.

_Don't look at me, I didn't make you drink the damned stuff._

"Well, how long am I gonna have the urge to –"

_Discover your inner canine?_

Dean's eyes narrowed as he stared at the Colonel. "What are we talking about here?"

_Well, off the top of my head, there's … let's see … marking territory. Making new friends. The loyalty factor, which I'm guessing belongs to the giant over there …_

"Marking territory?"

_Sure, you gotta let the others know what's yours, part of the whole alpha process._

"I'm not going 'round peeing on people's fences!"

_Not yet._

"Uh, what are you talking about?" Sam looked from his brother to the dog.

"Nothing!"

"The side-effects will probably wear off when the spell does," Sam said, looking at the screen.

"Great, how long's that?"

"Um … well it doesn't say."

Reaching around to the duffel on the bed behind him, Dean let his fingers walk through the contents, stopping as he felt the smooth paper and foil of the chocolate bar. He needed something. And sinking another beer had lost its appeal.

The Colonel watched as he unwrapped the end of the bar, breaking off a piece and putting it in his mouth.

_I wouldn't do that if I were you._

"What?"

"Uh, Dean, chocolate's … not good for dogs," Sam said.

"Goddammit!" He let the piece fall out of his mouth into his hand, a gooey mess with a scent that was suddenly, unbelievably intoxicating. And apparently poisonous.

* * *

><p>Leo Pincott stood by the stainless counter, staring at the letter he held in one hand. A single word kept stuttering through his mind, shutting out every other thought and feeling.<p>

_Malignant._

The spell had stopped the spread, had sent the tumours into remission, but it was back, and from the last series of tests, his doctor had written, more aggressive than it had been before.

He couldn't believe it.

The restaurant had given him the idea, originally. Exotic foods were not only expected but encouraged, the more exotic and peculiar the better. It was not difficult to add to the orders, to seek out the other ingredients he'd needed. The Navajo shaman, on the other hand, had begun to get suspicious and had to be dealt with, and it hadn't been until after he'd taken care of that little problem that he'd realised that the shaman had written nothing down, the rituals used for hundreds of years were only passed orally from generation to generation and memory trained and honed to remember it all.

The setback, however aggravating, had only been brief. There were avenues available if sufficient funds could be accumulated. And he had nothing better to spend his family's money on than prolonging his life indefinitely.

_Malignant _and_ aggressive_.

He looked around the kitchen, gaze passing sightlessly over the glass-fronted fridges, long, metal-topped counters, ovens and cooktops, sinks and drainers. The strength he'd gained had been enormous. At first, that was all he'd been after, just enough strength to keep going, to continue the treatments, to keep living. It hadn't been until he'd taken the eagle's brain that he'd realised what else he could enhance.

Strength and speed, dexterity and vision and smell and taste and hearing, his senses ultranatural, boosted so far past their human limits he'd wondered if he was dreaming. Invulnerability to certain things. Acuity in others. Every creature on the planet had some unique and impossibly perfect gift to offer and he'd partaken of many of them, the ancient ritual locking those abilities into his cells, into the very strands of the chromosomes that controlled everything. And it was all accessible to conscious will.

He needed more, he thought, looking back at the letter. Needed to go further, deeper.

As a chef, he'd been trained to seek out the flavours and textures and scents that contrasted and harmonised, that strengthened or weakened one another, that enhanced the foods they were cooked with. He thought this would be the same process. Harmony and enhancement, to change the cellular structure and make the progression of the disease impossible. He turned abruptly from the counter, striding across the polished tiled floor to the cold room. Strength and vitality and … speed. He knew what he needed.

* * *

><p><em>You're kidding me?<em>

"No, all dogs leashed," Dean said, snapping the leather leash to the dog's collar. "That way we don't have to worry about the lawsuits from the hyper-hysterical."

He opened the motel room door, walking across the asphalt lot to the car.

_Where are we headed?_

"Back to the animal shelter," Dean said tersely, the Colonel's forward motion pulling him along in powerful jerks.

_To sniff out more clues? _The animal's mental tone was on the obnoxious side of amused._ Maybe dig up something we missed?_

"Alright, one more doggy pun and I'm gonna have your nuts clipped," Dean threatened, looking down at him.

_Too late._

Dean felt the flinch, somewhere deep inside that he didn't want to investigate any more closely. His attempts to ignore it were aided by the sight of a long, white splat on the windshield of the black car, another following as they approached.

"Oh, you kidding me!?" he said, looking up at the pole above the car. On the top a pigeon sat, plump and self-satisfied. "Hey, dick move, pigeon!"

_Screw you, asshat!_

Dean's hand swung out, hitting Sam on the arm.

"What?!" Sam jumped.

"Wait a minute," Dean said, looking down at the dog. "Can I hear all animals?"

The dog looked up at him patiently.

_You can hear me, and I can hear them. QED._

_And I'm just getting started. Bunch of kids spent two hours feeding us this morning. You're gonna love the Dalmatian look to your wheels._

"What's it saying?" Sam looked up at the pigeon.

"Wh-it-it's being a douche bag!" Dean stammered incredulously, staring up at it.

_Who you calling 'douche bag', douche bag?_

"Shut it, you winged rat!" Dean yelled at the pigeon. Sam caught movement in the corner of his eye and saw an elderly couple pause by their car, both looking at Dean with raised brows.

"Dude," he said out of the corner of his mouth.

"What?!"

"Just calm down, get in the car," Sam said, making damping down gestures involuntarily as he looked at his brother's scowl. For a second, he thought he hadn't heard, then Dean fished the keys from his pocket, handing them over and walked around the hood.

_That's it, Sally, go cry to Momma!_

"Oh, that's _it_, you sonofabitch," Dean growled, swinging around, dropping the dog's leash as he pulled out his gun, the barrel swinging up and centering on the bird's puffed-up chest.

"HEY!" Sam looked back, eyes bugging out as he saw the gun rising, pivoting on the spot and grabbing Dean's arm. "God, Dean, be cool!"

He heard the click as the hammer was uncocked, Dean's head ducking down, and he looked around, smiling widely and, he hoped, reassuringly, at the people looking at them. He waited until Dean had tucked the gun away and picked up the Colonel's leash then sidled along the car to the driver's door, opening it and slinging himself in with relief.

"What the fuck!?" he growled at Dean as his brother opened the rear door and the dog jumped in.

"You think this is easy?" Dean snapped back, closing the rear door and jack-knifing into the passenger seat, annoyance radiating from him like a defective heater. "Listening to a-a-a friggin' _bird_ trash-talking me?"

"Restraint!" Sam suggested forcefully, starting the engine. "Just, I don't know, a little so we don't get arrested before we can even finish the freaking case!"

Dean looked away, unwinding his window all the way and swivelling around on the seat to reach into the back and do the same to the rear window. Sam took his foot off the accelerator as he watched him do it.

"You're joking."

"Need the fresh air," Dean muttered, leaning out slightly. "Loosens the tension."

Sam's mouth tightened slightly as he drove out of the lot and noticed Dean leaning further out.

"Dude, you're blocking the mirror," he said and Dean glanced around, slinking back inside slightly.

Was this what they going to be condemned to the rest of their lives, Sam wondered, fingers closing harder on the wheel in unease. Curses and spells, hunted by the things they were supposed to be hunting, his brother's only release from tension hanging out the car window with his mouth open?

The spell would wear off, he knew, but it didn't change anything. Dean hadn't wanted to talk about Charlie's decision or what she'd said to him when she'd hugged him goodbye. He also didn't want to talk about why Cas had left so abruptly and after they'd just got done hauling his ass out of danger and into the bunker. And somewhere near the top of the list of things that his brother was not talking about, there was the question of what exactly had happened at the church when he'd collapsed in Dean's arms and the angels had begun to fall out of the sky.

He could vaguely remember not being able to breathe, then there was pretty much nothing, until he'd woken scrunched into the corner of the Impala's front seat, driving through the night. At first, he'd put his brother's glib explanation down to him being okay, maybe a cramp or something similar, something that'd gone away and left him alright. But Dean's insistence in the last few weeks that he rest, that he not try to do anything that was too hard, too physical, too taxing … that didn't mesh with him being fine at all.

Then there were the nightmares. And the long, brooding silences. And the weird-ass looks he kept getting from his older brother. And the weirder explanations that would more or less burst out of Dean whenever he came to after being knocked out. Short. Lacking in any kind of detail. Weird.

He glanced in the rearview mirror and noticed that the driver behind him was peering through his windshield. A quick look at the side mirror told him why. Dean and the Colonel were almost on the same slant, heads hanging out the window, eyes slitted against the wind of the car's motion, mouths open. He fixed his gaze on the road ahead and kept it there.


	10. Chapter 10 Canis Major

**Chapter 10 Canis Major**

* * *

><p>Dean felt the backwash of disappointment from the dog behind as Sam bumped up over the driveway and slowed down to enter the parking lot. He suddenly realised he was hanging most of the way out of the passenger window, his cheeks were stiff and aching a little from the wide smile that must have been plastered across his face for the entire cross-town ride and he thought he might have a bug or two on his teeth.<p>

Sliding back in, he kept his face carefully averted from his brother, unlocking the door and getting out, going straight to the rear door to open it for the dog.

"I think it might be best if we just leave the Colonel in the car," Sam said, across the roof.

"Excuse me?"

"Well," Sam said, looking over the car and gesturing widely. "All the windows are open."

"You think we like that?" Dean demanded, his voice deepening.

Sam looked at him uncertainly. "We?"

"You think that because all the windows are open, that's some kind of a treat?" His brother's brows drew together as he stared over the shiny black metal. "That it makes up for being left alone? Abandoned? Not knowing if anyone will ever come back!?"

"Uh…"

"No, the dog's coming in," Dean snapped, turning to clip the leash on the Colonel's collar.

_That was quite an interesting insight, coming from a human._

Dean looked away, chewing the corner of his lip uncomfortably as he waited for the Colonel to jump out. He wasn't sure where it'd come from, the anger bursting free without thought. He didn't want to see his brother's questioning look, the one he could feel burning into the side of his head.

* * *

><p><em>That's the man?<em>

_Really? He can hear us? Understand us?_

_What's the story, Colonel?_

_Alright, give it a rest, let the guy do his job._

Dean walked down the aisle, looking at the cat cages and wondering which of the remaining animals had had enough of a view of what'd happened to be able to give them some kind of description. At the end of the row, an ageing Collie looked up at him politely. He flicked a look at the papers attached to the side of the cage.

"Uh, Tillie?"

_Yes, dear, that's me._

The thought, like the pigeon's, had maybe a microsecond's hesitation, and he guessed that was the relay between the Colonel's mind and his own. It was surprisingly disorienting, like talking to someone on a bad overseas line.

"So, what can you tell me about the man in the cowboy hat?" he asked, looking at her mostly grey coat, and completely white face.

_Honestly, I couldn't see much. Damned cataracts – and you know no one's going to pay for my surgery. I don't belong in here, you know, I'm pedigree!_

"Well, I'm sure you'll be out of here soon," Dean said soothingly, glancing down at the dog beside him.

_Please, I'm fourteen._

The tone, even delivered through the Colonel's more pragmatic mind, was weary and knowing, and he didn't know what to say to counter it.

"Uh, well, good luck … ma'am," he offered, turning to close the door, the metal latch dropping down with a final clunk.

_You ready to run the gauntlet?_

Dean looked down the aisle and nodded, keeping his head down as the complaints and pleas, request and downright threats followed him along.

"What are they doing here, anyway?"

_Don't ask me. One minute, we're safe in a home with a family. The next, the guy in the black van turns up and this is it. People get bored, I guess._

"Anything?" Sam asked as he came up to him.

"No, angle's too great for most of them, and they didn't like the way the guy smelled."

_Hey! Pretty boy! Over here!_

He turned around to see a Yorkie standing up against the door of its cage, looking at him.

"Yeah, sorry pal, I'm done for the day," he told the dog.

_But I saw everything!_

"Oh yeah?" Dean asked sceptically. "From down here?"

_Look up and left, genius._

He turned around, looking up at the round convex mirror that showed the entire aisle clearly. Shrugging, he turned back, walking closer to the little dog's cage.

_And I'll tell it all, every last detail … but … it'll cost ya._

Dean smiled. "Are you kidding me?" He looked at Sam. "I'm being extorted by a dog."

_Tsk, tsk, that's such a nasty word. How 'bout 'persuaded'? That has a much nicer feel to it._

Dean's mouth twisted down. "Crap stays crap, no matter what you call it. What do you want?"

_Right down to business … alright. Information's a precious commodity as I'm sure you know –_

"Cut to the chase."

_I want a … belly rub._

He had to repress the urge to laugh, ducking his head and shrugging as he reached for the latch of the cage. "Okay, sure."

_Not from you, sugar. From the other fella. The one with the big hands._

Dean looked at the Yorkie, wondering if he'd just imagined the tone that'd come with that.

"What? What did it say?" Sam glanced from the dog to his brother.

"Uh …" Dean said, looking down at his hands, resting on the cage door. "Well, he, uh, he says, he wants a belly rub. From you."

"A what?" Sam looked at the Yorkie, small dark eyes twinkling at him through an unruly mop of fur. "Why?"

"Sam, I don't think we need to go into the whys of what dogs want what they want –"

His brother made a face. "I meant – why me?"

"Oh. Well, uh, you got bigger hands."

"Huh."

"You in?"

Sam could just imagine the fuss if he didn't cave to this request. _Oh, yeah, never got to gank that monster, Sam was too sensitive to take one for the team, just had to give a belly rub to a dog, but well, you know, next time …_

"Sure."

Undoing the latch, Dean pulled the door open and picked up the little dog, depositing it into Sam's arms. The Yorkie flipped itself onto its back with a remarkable dexterity as his brother looked down at the long, silky fur that covered the ribs, fining out over its belly. The hind legs flopped apart, toes twitching in anticipation and the eyes closed in bliss as his brother starting rubbing his fingertips in circles from the high arch of its ribs over its belly.

"Alright, everything, you said," Dean reminded the dog, as its mouth opened and its tongue fell out to one side.

_Aaaah … well, he was wearing a cowboy hat, leather pants, one of them string ties, the ones with a little clasp that slides up and down …_

"Okay," Dean prompted, frowning. "What else can you tell me about the guy other than his outfit?"

_Ummmmmm … he was carrying a burlap sack, for the cats._

"What'd he want with the cats?"

_Hell if I know but he took all of 'em … 'ceptin' the one he _ate_._

"Oheew!" Dean's face screwed up as the image splash-landed in his mind's eye.

"What?" Sam looked at him.

"Apparently the guy has a sweet tooth," Dean said, his grimace reminiscent of someone trying to get a hair out of their mouth. "For, uh, kitty-cats."

"Oh."

_And the sack had somethin' written on it._

"And? What'd it say?" Dean looked up as Sam lifted his hand and started to shake it.

_Ohhh …_

The bright, beady eyes looked back at him as the dog yawned affectatiously.

"Come on, we had a deal!"

_You tell that to your boy, he's the one who stopped holding up your end._

"Sam?"

"Hand cramps!" Sam hissed at him, flexing his fingers and shaking his hand harder, trying to get blood and feeling back into his fingertips.

Dean lifted a shoulder in a semi-sympathetic shrug, gesturing at the dog. "He's not talking."

The look Sam sent him promised a conversation about this beyond-the-call moment somewhere down the line, but his brother closed up his hand and continued the belly rub with his knuckles.

_Better … _

"Get on with it," Dean snapped impatiently.

_It said Avant-Garde Cuisine and don't get your panties in a twist just because a dog is taking a few well-earned –_

_That's a restaurant, on Main Street._

Dean looked over his shoulder at the Colonel.

_No dogs allowed._

"Hamburger and dish-soap," Dean said, nodding at him and turning back to Sam. "We gotta go downtown," he said, shrugging as he saw Sam's eyes widen. "Apparently our guy works in a restaurant."

Sam stepped forward as his brother stepped back, depositing the Yorkie ungently back into the concrete-floored run.

_Aw, now, wait a minute._

"Dean? You ready?" Sam looked back, brow furrowing up as Dean turned and walked back down to the far end of the aisle.

"In a minute," Dean said, lifting the latches on the cages to either side, opening the doors.

_Never would've pegged you for a softie._

He glanced over at the Colonel, mouth curling up derisively as he let out the last three and they bounded, skidded and scrambled up the slick floor toward the doors.

Pushing the rear doors open, Dean stood to one side as the stream of dogs shot through the gap and made for the street. He looked down at the Colonel.

"You should take off too," he told the dog. "From here, me and Sam'll take the guy down. You'll be safer well out of the blast zone."

_The strength of the Pack is the _wolf_._

"What?" Dean asked as the dog looked down at the ground for a moment, then back up to him, mouth opening and the long tongue spilling out a little, dark brown eyes filled with a thoughtful appraisal.

_Not up on your Kipling? We'll be around for a while, say, within whistlin' distance._

"No need, we can take him."

_Maybe you can. But we'll still be around for a while._

"Not too close," Dean warned, rolling his eyes slightly as he pulled the doors closed.

The dog trotted away, tail straight up, but he heard the final thought.

_And the strength of the wolf is the _Pack_._

* * *

><p>The Impala cruised down Main Street, Dean keeping just under the speed limit as they passed the restaurant.<p>

"Blinds are closed but there're lights on inside," Sam said, turning in his seat as they passed it.

"Working late?"

"Private party? There's a car parked out front," Sam shook his head. "Someone's in there."

"We'll go around back," Dean decided, making a right at the next corner.

The parking lot was dark, only two cars parked there when he pulled in near the door. No one came to look at them with the clunk-squeak of the doors opening and closing.

"Locked but not alarmed," Sam said, pulling out picks and dealing with the lock.

Dean nodded. "Figure on at least the chef and another employee."

The hallway was lit, and Dean looked around, glancing over his shoulder at his brother.

Sam took point, checking each of the closed and open doors they passed. The place was silent. Good soundproofing or no one working right now?

"Dean," he said, stopping beside a door marked 'Office'. "Hey."

It was unlocked and he pulled out his flashlight, walking in and shining the beam around the room. To one side, stainless steel shelving holding bulk ingredients sent gleams of light back from the flashlight. On the other, a desk was tucked into a space against the shelving holding the restaurant's canned and packaged stores.

"Check this out," he said softly, the flashlight lighting up a framed photo of a skinny man in a pale yellow cowboy hat, holding a carving knife. He read the inscription on the bottom out loud. "Chef Leo. Think he's our guy?"

"It's Okie town," Dean grunted. "Lotsa dudes wear cowboy hats."

Sam slid into the chair in front of the desk and switched on the desk lamp. Dean kept going, veering to look at the contents of metal shelves against the wall.

The first drawer on the left-hand side of the desk held pens, pencils and order books. Sam pulled out the top drawer to the right and blinked as the bottles rolled back and forth in the beam.

"Whoa, Oxycodil, Ultram, methadone," he read.

"Mmm, guess he likes to cook comfortably numb," Dean remarked, flicking his light over the shelves and skimming through the labels. He frowned as he saw the jars of dried and crushed foliage, tucking his flashlight under his arm and unscrewing the lid on one wide-mouthed jar. The powdered contents were a pale purplish colour, smelling faintly herb-y. Echinacea (Purple coneflower), the label had been done in a printed and even hand. Beside it, there were jars of rowan, bark and berry, goldenseal … hawthorn … acorn … vervain … quite the herbalist's selection, he thought. Turning, he walked to the fridge. Dozens of Tupperware containers, all filled with a tell-tale reddish liquid, filled the capacious shelving of the glass-doored fridge, each marked with the contents. All in their raw state, he thought, reading through them.

"Hey, owl brains, cheetah liver, grizzly heart," he said.

"Found a spell book," Sam said from behind him. "Shamanism."

"Okay, what's a chef doing dabbling with witchcraft?"

"I don't know," Sam said slowly, looking through the notes. "These are notes, the shaman would never've written this down. He might not've known he was being recorded."

"Notes on what?" Dean frowned at him.

"Uh, they're recipes … kind of," Sam said, reading down the page. "Listen to this, tongue of a boa, venom sacs of a cobra, peyote, purple coneflower, goldenseal. There's an incantation and a ritual cleansing … to be ingested … gives the powers of the snakes used …" He looked up at Dean.

"And hey presto, mega snake," Dean said softly. "What else is in there?"

"Everything," Sam said, flipping through the pages of the thick book. "To gain strength, grizzly heart and white mustard plant, yarrow and sagebrush. For speed, cheetah liver –"

"Doesn't sound much like Native American shamanism," Dean interjected.

"This is African, Bwiti," Sam said, blinking at the ingredients. "Cheetah liver, iboga … I mean, that's only found in Central Africa, it's used in ritual animism there along with initiations."

"How do you _know_ that?" Dean asked exasperatedly, turning to stare at him.

Sam shrugged. "Look at this," he said, looking through a dozen cards tucked in between the pages of the book. "Doing a little experimentation here. Lion liver and eagle heart. Baboon brains and black widow fangs. And this one, chameleon pituitary gland and skin, cat adrenal gland, grizzly heart and black mamba, entire." His nose wrinkled up in distaste. "He's mixing and matching."

Dean looked around the room. "He's a chef. That's what they do, isn't it?"

"But why? I mean, he can already kill in a number of ways, and so far all the kills have been to get these ingredients, right? Why make the spells more powerful?"

The noise in the hallway was small but distinct and both men turned, guns drawn and cocked in the same motion, Sam flicking off the desk lamp as he rose from the chair.

Standing back from the door, his flashlight aimed along the barrel of the automatic, Dean's gaze was focussed on the centre of the doorway as his brother opened it and moved to the side. He went into the hall, checking in one direction, feeling Sam move out behind him and check in the other. It was empty, the eye-searing, fire-engine red patterned wallpaper unbroken along its length.

Turning they walked down the hall, coming into a large commercial kitchen, shelving of huge pots, tureens and pans lining one wall, stainless steel counters, sinks and island benches, cooktops and ovens taking up the others.

They both heard the sound, coming from the lit area further in. The first kitchen led into a second, closer to the main seating section of the restaurant and Dean uncocked and stowed his weapon as he saw the young cook standing at a counter, grinding something with a mortar and pestle. He looked up at the scrape of Sam's boot on the floor, setting down the bowl and frowning at them.

"Who the hell are you?"

"Cops," Dean said, looking around. "Got a gas leak down the street, everyone's being ordered to evacuate the block."

The young man looked at their jeans and jackets sceptically. "Cops?"

Sam scowled at him. "Not that it's your business, but they pulled in everyone and we're detectives working Vice," he snapped at him. "Since you're obviously tapped into the line, if there's a leak it could end up Armageddoning here so I suggest you take your attitude, anyone else in the place and get the fuck out!"

The sous-chef's eyes widened like a child's and he nodded, face paling, striding toward the door. "We've got a private party tonight, uh, three other people and a waiter –"

"Get them the hell out!" Sam roared at him. "Get them into their cars and out of the area as fast as you can, move it, MOVE IT!"

"Yessir!" The young man ran, crashing into the waiter who was bringing an empty tray in from the other side and sending the tray flying into the air and bouncing on the tiled floor with a horrendous clanging and ringing.

Dean kept his face completely expressionless with a self-discipline honed and tempered in his father's training, holding his astonished bubble of laughter down and away until he heard them hit the front door.

"Where the _hell_ did that come from, Callahan?" he asked with a half-strangled laugh.

"Listening to you," Sam said shortly. "Take the front?"

Dean nodded, turning for the swinging door.

"We even know how to kill this guy?" Sam asked, looking around the kitchen.

Waving the automatic in the air as he hit the door with his hand, he said over his shoulder, "Empty one of these in his head. See what that does."

The door swung shut behind him and Sam moved slowly through the room, checking any space that was big enough to contain a man – or something man-sized.

From the hallway at the rear of the restaurant, there was a bang, then the heavy clunk of the fire door being closed. The Taurus' barrel lifted and he crabbed fast through the first kitchen, looking both ways at the wallpapered hall before he moved out. At the end, the fire door had been opened. He could see it standing slightly ajar and he moved toward it, leading with his gun hand.

He wasn't sure if it was something tangible, or instinct, or both, but he could feel a living presence, close by and he slowed down then stopped. Turning his head slowly, he looked at the end of the corridor, unsure if the soft whisper he could hear was breathing, in and then out … and very, very close.

He stared at the wall next to him, his brow furrowing as his mind registered light and shadow, curve and line against the repeated patterns of the wallpaper. Leaning closer, his eyes narrowed as he studied the wall – then widened when, a little below his own eye level, a pair of brilliantly green-gold almond-shaped eyes suddenly opened.

The involuntary step backward saved him from the first slashing strike of the long fingers, each digit tipped by a retractable, curved claw. Sam felt the tips catch on his jacket and he wrenched himself free, stumbling backwards down the hall as the colouration of the figure in front of him gradually faded away, the red background and white and yellow Sixties shapes dissolving, too fast to be natural, to be anything Nature would provide. The skin of the naked man was reorganising the chromatophores, melanin and reflective cells throughout the four layers, he thought, remembering the process of chameleons from some vaguely recalled documentary. But it didn't happen like this. And no chameleon could mimic its surroundings to such extreme detail.

Tall and narrow-shouldered, with a long, lean face, Sam recognised the man's from the photograph and he swallowed hard as he tried to remember what the fuck had been on the recipe card along with the chameleon and the cat.

The chef's body twisted up a little, thinning further, the transformation accompanied by a popping and crackling of bone and sinew beneath the skin. His eyes, pupils slitted vertically, remained the same and the long claws at the ends of the fingers and toes stayed as well; the rest rippled, reflecting the overhead light of the hallway at different angles, as smooth and sinuous as that of a …

… _snake_, he thought, memory coming back and his hand lifting simultaneously, his .45 calibre Taurus snapping out and levelling as his finger squeezed the trigger.

The creature writhed effortlessly to one side and was in front of him before he could squeeze off a second shot, the gun snatched from his hand and flung back along the hall, claws lashing out and this time catching the side of his throat, ripping through skin and flesh, tendon and artery as the man leaned close to him and smiled, his features flattened and blunt.

Blood was pumping out, he could feel it, a hot spill down the side of his neck, the coppery reek filling his nostrils as he slammed his hand up and connected with the man's elongated jaw, two hundred and ten pounds of solid muscle and bone sending the (_chameleon-cat-snake_) monster flying backward down the hall and onto the floor.

Swinging away, Sam heard the thing's hiss, part cat, part snake, and scrambled along the wall, pressing his palm against the wide-open cuts he could feel transecting his carotid, aware that he had seconds at most to get the hell away before he was either opened up again or bitten. The long-ago memory returned to him with vivid force as he half-ran, half-staggered down the hall … the classroom hot and stuffy, the other kids staring at him with varying expressions of boredom and an apathy that seemed to suck his own energy from his bones, clearing his throat and looking down at the notes he'd prepared … _the black mamba is the fastest and one of the most venomous snakes on the planet_ …

Consciousness vanished abruptly.

Ezekiel drew upon the power of the vessel's soul, lifting the hand that was held over the wounds and lightening the touch to just fingertips as power from within filled them with a cool blue-white light. Cell to cell, nerve and muscle, artery walls and skin fused together from the inside out, rejoining without leaving a trace of the injury. Some blood had been lost, he considered dispassionately. It couldn't be replaced in time. He could hear the convoluted combination of feline yowl and elapid hiss behind him but there was no further power he could draw from the soul without jeopardising himself.

He withdrew.

Sam came to suddenly, leaning against the wall with his hand still clutched to his neck. He spun around at the noise behind him, blinking at the contradictory information of his body, a memory of pain that he couldn't now feel; an awareness that his hand was sticky with blood and the faintly metallic scent still filled his nose but he couldn't feel an injury, couldn't feel a flow, and he didn't feel dizzy any more. He abandoned the conundrum as the man in front of him morphed slightly, the elongation of his frame shrinking in a series of almost-strobing contractions, his irises darkening, the pupils expanding wide and contracting back to a human roundness, the claws retracting with a vaguely sickening sound into the ends of his fingers.

"How did you do that?" Leo asked, taking a single step closer, the final flicker of light-edged scales vanishing.

"D-do w-w-what?" Sam stammered, knowing what he was talking about, unable to think of a single cogent response. His shirt collar felt heavy and limp with the blood soaking it, sliding over his collar bone as he stood straighter, eyes flicking to his gun, now three yards behind the man and on the floor. How was it he was covered in blood but he couldn't feel the cuts on his neck?

"What _are_ you?!"

Sam felt his eyes widen as the man's outline shifted again, growing taller, slab shoulders and deep barrel chest furring rapidly, muscle flexing and bunching under skin strained tight. The fist that flashed out in a straight jab was bigger than his and it hit like a sledgehammer on the point of his jaw, the reverberation from the impact slamming his brain against the inside of skull and black filling his vision as he fell to the floor.

"Whatever you are," the chef mused, looking down at him and dropping clumsily to one knee as the attributes of the bear receded. "You are what I need."

* * *

><p>Dean came back through the empty dining area, the back of his neck prickling as he heard noises from the kitchen behind the swinging service doors.<p>

_Sonofabitch. _

He recognised the steady, high-pitched scraping sound and turned soundlessly, taking the door at the other end of the room and moving down the short hall to the corridor that led to the parking lot. In the middle of the hall, the spatter and half-congealing small pool of blood stopped him for a second, and he looked down at it expressionlessly then stepped around it and walked toward the kitchens.

The guy – _Chef Leo_, he thought belatedly – or whatever he was now – had gotten the drop on his brother. He pushed the knowledge aside firmly. His fear for Sam wouldn't help and the accompanying anger would take the control he needed.

On the slightly moving air, he could smell the rich, warm scent of meat, the earthy scents of vegetables, accompanied by a cooler scent of water, could smell the acrid tang of the slowly heating metal of the blade the asshat was sharpening, could hear the faint sounds of the tiny filings falling to the floor. Underlying that, he picked out the scent of his brother, the slight tang of Sam's blood, spilled out but no longer flowing, drying in the air-conditioned coolness of the room.

He realised he could smell another mixture of smells surrounding the sharper odour of the blade being honed, the acid scent of reptile and the rank reek of predator intertwined. In his mind, that data was being collated unfamiliarly, an oddly fluxing sensation through his skull as if his brain was using an area it hadn't before. In his mind's eye, a three-dimensional image formed, the position of Leo overlaid on the existing knowledge of the layout of the kitchen.

He was on the outside edge of the wall's corner when he heard Leo speak, a low peevish mutter, "Why does it smell like dog in here?"

Stepping out from the edge of the wall, Dean fired without hesitation, the notched sight at the end of the barrel centred over the man's shoulder-blades, the trigger pulls smooth and fast, the casings jingling as they hit the floor at his feet.

He had no idea what happened next.

A heavy cleaver lay on the floor next to him, its recently-honed edge red and wet. There was a white-hot, throbbing ache blooming fiercely in his right shoulder, and he was lying on the floor looking up at the face of something that might've been a man but wasn't any more, into perfectly round, black eyes, the pupils delineated by fine pale circles surrounding them.

Fists knotted in the front of his jacket, hauling him into a sitting position, his right hand numb and not working, his auto lying three feet away, half-hidden under an open shelving unit.

"It's coming from you," Leo said accusingly, slitted nostrils flaring delicately.

Behind him, at the other end of the kitchen, Dean saw Sam, lying on the floor.

"What'd you do to my brother?"

Leo's fingers jabbed into the open cleaver wound, his almost-lipless mouth smiling as Dean's breath hissed out with the pain. Keeping the scream locked down in his throat took just about everything the hunter had.

"Your brother?" the chef asked, looking over his shoulder thoughtfully. "Interesting family, the man-who-can't-die and dog-boy. But you should really be worried about what I'm going to do to you."

_Gotta stay conscious_, Dean thought, fixing his attention on the thing in front of him. He saw the muscles around Leo's eyes ripple slightly, the shape of the eyes changing, flattening out, irises and pupils returning to those of the man in the photograph.

His voice was different, he thought distractedly, not American. British? Somewhere else? What Leo had said registered slowly. _The man-who-can't-die?_ He looked back at Sam, seeing the blood-soaked collar of his jacket.

_Zeke._

Another scent, rotten and ripe, hit him as Leo's breath gusted out over the side of his face and he turned to look at him.

"You're sick."

He had no idea where that knowledge or the complete certainty of it had come from. The smell, not decomposition or putrefaction, but something that had elements of both, had translated into a hundred different pieces of information, wrongness, rot, out-of-control cells, shedding themselves into Leo's bloodstream.

"I suppose I am."

"Not in the head," Dean said slowly. "All the way through, it's everywhere."

"I guess it's true, then," Leo said, getting to his feet. "Dogs really can sniff it out."

He picked up a roll of roasting twine and cut a length from it. Dean's eyes widened a little as he saw Leo's outline flicker and solidify, the thin shirt bulging suddenly as shoulders and chest expanded, hair on the man's forearms and wrists thickening, and the bones of his face bowing out for a fraction of a second and back in as some internal change took over. Leo's eyes got smaller, recessing under the ridge of his brow, small and dark and ursine.

"Stage Four," he said, gripping Dean's right wrist and twisting the arm sharply. "As you say, all the way through."

Pain struck like a bolt of lightning, closing in around his vision, sheeting down his right side and contracting every muscle. He barely felt himself dragged back to the pillar behind him, the pull on his right arm opening the deep wound widely, blood spilling hot down his chest and waves of agony rolling over him as Leo pulled both arms back behind the concrete column. The twine, thin but tough and tightly spun, bit into his wrists, cutting into the skin.

_Don't pass out_, he told himself furiously, struggling to keep his eyes open, fixing his gaze on his brother. _Don't even think about it!_

"I didn't know," Leo said, getting to his feet, his body rippling surreally again, features turning and twisting and the weight and bulk shimmering and dissolving. "By the time I did, it was too late. And it doesn't matter what I do, it keeps coming back."

"Sounds like God's trying to tell you something," Dean slurred, sucking air in between his teeth as he pushed back at the pain, his teeth snapping together as he tested the strength of the twine binding him. He flinched a little as an incorrectly joined edge of the metal-clad corner of the pillar cut into the side of his thumb.

Leo made a noise in the back of his throat. "Maybe. But I'm not ready and I'm not going quietly."

He walked over to the shelving and bent, picking up the automatic and looking at it. Dean stiffened as the chef swung the barrel around, the small black hole at its end pointed at him.

_Click._

Leo laughed, glancing at the scattered casings on the floor. "You know, the black mamba is fast, the fastest snake in the world, but I don't think it's fast enough to avoid every one of your bullets, not on its own," he told Dean, tossing the empty gun onto the floor.

"Fortunately, my latest endeavours have been a success. Animals have more than just their strengths to offer. They have a vitality, a passion to their lives. Kill or be killed. Simple. Unambiguous." He turned away abruptly. "People have largely lost that … that vitality. Look at us! Grinding away at jobs we hate! Forced into choices that are the last thing we'd ever choose if there wasn't any other way! Meaningless things clutter our minds and our bodies and all of it is making us sick, filled with wretchedness and tension and the unending futility of trying to understand where the importance is."

Dean watched him pace agitatedly across the floor, working the binding around his wrists against the sharp edge of metal.

"Animals understand that there is life and there is death and there's nothing in between. They don't waste their precious moments wondering if the living room wall is exactly the right colour to go with the drapes. They don't care what they look like or what it all means. They're focussed on what's important, for survival, every second of their lives."

Gesturing at the counter, he looked back at Dean and smiled. "I'm following that philosophy now. No more wondering if I'm doing the right thing – I'm doing the only thing I can to survive.

"And if you smoke a few people to keep living, who cares, right?" Dean asked, sensing that the justifications were almost at an end. "You're all right, that's all that matters?"

"You are what you eat," Leo said coolly. "And predators are more efficient." He looked at the ingredients sitting in front of him. "Wolf heart and goldenseal, iobaga and sagebrush and … as the piece de resistance, your brother's organs, lightly sautéed in a sweet oil, I think. Sounds good, yeah?"

Swivelling his left wrist inward, Dean gripped the length of twine, sawing harder.

The chef picked up the cleaver, lifting it and running his tongue along the bloodied edge. "I can't see much point to eating you, however. And I'm a little busy this evening, so let's get this over with, shall we?"

The twine was parting, strand by strand and Dean stretched it further as Leo walked toward him, ignoring the thin trickle of blood he could feel over his hands, the deeper stab of the wound in his shoulder, the grey mists that were crowding out his peripheral vision.

The twine sliced through and he was rolling left hard, hand sliding on the floor a little with his blood as he pushed down, feet scrabbling under him.

For a moment, Leo stood there, staring at him, and Dean realised that whatever powers the man'd had, they were gone at this moment. He was human, ordinary and … _killable_ … he thought, lunging forward.

The cleaver swung in a wide arc, slow and clumsy, and he avoided the blade easily, dropping a little as his left hand closed and then rising, the straight cross hitting Leo's chest on the breastbone with all of his weight behind it. The chef staggered back, light spearing from the blade as the cleaver flew in a low trajectory across the room and clanged against the stainless cupboards.

"No!" The chef backed away, his gaze flicking from side to side for another weapon.

"All out of juice, Leo?" Dean asked, following him around the table. "Guess that means you're just an ordinary asshole now."

Leo clutched at the edge of the table, looking down automatically. He reached out and grabbed the wolf's heart sitting on the edge of the chopping board, lifting his head to stare triumphantly at Dean as he opened his mouth and took a bite, scooping up handfuls of the other ingredients and shoving them in as he chewed.

"_Rahuraar, sakuriisat iisat a ti'pah kaawakit. 'A tarahkista'u... a raah_," he said, the words muffled and sprayed out, his eyes fixed on the half-eaten muscle in his hands.

Around Leo, the air shimmered and glittered and Dean saw the man's dark eyes lighten, the iris becoming round and a deep gold as he consumed the heart. He seemed to thicken … massive trapezius, deltoid and pectoral muscle bulging under the skin, creating a top-heavy look, the sternos to either side of the neck widening abruptly. Leo's head tipped back, and a stentorian rumble sounded in his chest as his lips drew back from a jaw that was suddenly longer and deeper, the flat white light of the kitchen's fluorescent lights gleaming from fang and incisor and long, red tongue.

_Plan B_, Dean decided. Chef Leo had just gained at least two hundred pounds of efficient canine muscle and size for size, he didn't think he could take him without a weapon that gave him some advantage of reach.

He turned and ran, hearing the rumble ascend into a howl, long and eerie and loud in the confined space, echoing from the hard surfaces. He heard the crash as a shelf went down behind him, the unmistakable clicking of claws over the tiled floor.

The fire door at the end of the hall looked a thousand yards distant, he could feel his blood pumping out of his shoulder with every stride and every heartbeat, soaking his coat and shirt, slicking down his skin. Behind him, there was a thud against a wall, followed by the frantic scrabbling of claws over the floor and a growl that was turning into a snarl, thick and liquid and hungry.

Dean accelerated, his arm tucked hard against his chest. He hit the door lever straight-armed with his left, the door flying open and slamming with a crash against the wall, his bootsteps grating loud over the parking lot. Stopping abruptly ten yards from the door, he looked into the darkness of the alley.

"Nowhere to run." Leo panted as he came out of the building and stopped a few feet from the door, the slow squeal of the hinges and final clunk and click as the door closed and locked itself loud in the silent asphalt lot. "Wolf against dog-boy? Think you stand a chance?"

"No," Dean said, not turning around. "Not without a pack."

He whistled sharply, the two-tone note carrying through the night. Immediately there was an answering deep-throated bark, then another, and another, joining together in a primal and chilling baying symphony as they came down the alley in a seething, furry mass, the big dogs at the front, the smaller ones trailing behind, high-pitched yapping filling in the gaps between the growls and snarling.

Leo turned to the door, hitting it in frustration as he realised it was locked. He spun around and ran for the other side of the lot, half-jumping as he saw the high chainlink fence in front of him, his fingers curling through the links.

Watching him, Dean thought he might've made it if he hadn't tried the door first. The Colonel launching himself at the chef's back, jaws closing around his neck. The rest, Weinmarer and Lab and wolfhound and bitzers, leapt together, teeth snapping, sinking into muscle and tendon, crunching on bone and their combined weight dragging him back off the chain, taking him down. He heard the sudden high howl of a dog injured and took a step forward, hesitating as it was overridden by a longer, deeper ululation, filled with agony and cut off abruptly as one of the pack found the exposed throat and tore it out.

Turning away, he walked back to the door and pulled out his picks, trying not to hear too much of the sounds behind him, his imagination furnishing images anyway. Finessing the lock was a bitch one-handed, worse given that it was his stupid hand that had to do the work. The concentration it took muted his surroundings and he closed his eyes as the lock finally clicked open. He felt light-headed and disoriented as he used the handle to help him to his feet, pulling the door open and stepping into the hall for the second time that night.

* * *

><p>Sam lay on the floor, and Dean dropped to his knees beside him, thumb feeling for a pulse as he rested his right hand lightly on his brother's chest. He felt both heartbeat and the rise at the same time, breath gusting out in relief.<p>

"Hey," he said, slipping a hand under Sam's neck. "Sam, come on, wake up!"

He couldn't see any movement behind his brother's eyelids, and he leaned closer, tapping his cheek gently with his palm. "Hey, Sammy! Zeke! Whoever's in there! C'mon, wake up! Don't make me lick your damned face! HEY!"

Sam's eyes snapped open, looking up at him, then wriggling back a little to look around. Dean bowed his head for a moment, pushing everything back down again, grateful and at the same time, hating the constant see-saw he seemed to be on, fluctuating between fear and fury.

"C'mon, man, it's over," he said, looking up to find Sam's gaze fixed to his shoulder. "Not as bad as it looks, let's go."

He shifted his grip and held out his left hand, Sam's fingers curling around his as his brother sat up and he leaned back, and they got to their feet together.

"What happened?"

"To you?" he asked, walking stiffly out through the kitchen. He was just about at the end of what he could ignore in the way of the pain that filled his entire right side. "I got no clue. I came in and ol' Chef Leo was sharpening a cleaver and you were lying there, out for the count."

"To you, I meant," Sam said, frowning at him. "Your shoulder?"

"Oh." He thought about that for a moment, then shrugged with his left shoulder. "I can't remember exactly. I emptied a clip at the sonofabitch but only grazed him once, then I was on the floor and I couldn't move my right arm. He moved faster than I could see."

"Snakes, uh, they can control their muscles individually," Sam said. "Mambas can strike more than a dozen times in a second. How'd you kill him?"

"I didn't."

"What?" Sam lengthened his stride and turned his head to look at him. "He's alive?"

"No, puppy chow right about now," Dean said tiredly. "The Colonel brought reinforcements and they took him down and they're … uh … they're disposing of the body."

He saw Sam's face screw up in disgust from the corner of his eye, ducking his head to hide his smile. Sam'd always had the more sensitive stomach.

"What do we do about this?" Sam gestured vaguely around as they walked down the hall.

"Told those guys there was a gas leak in the neighbourhood."

"Yeah, we did, didn't we?"

Dean slowed down, turning to look back at the kitchen. "Kitchen should hold most of the blast. But I need to get the dogs out and gone and you should call in emergency response before I set it off."

"Go and tell the Colonel to get the others out," Sam said, stopping beside him. "I'll take care of the call and the leak. I'll limit the damage to the kitchen and the office as much as possible."

"You just woke up," Dean argued, but Sam could tell it was only a token counter.

"And you need to stop moving that arm around," he said, his face screwing up as he look more closely at his brother's clothes. "Go, I'll be out in a minute."

Tiredness, of body and soul, was leeching his little remaining strength, Dean realised as he remained standing there. He watched Sam turn away and walk back to the kitchen. Whether he wanted to accept it or not, Sam was right, he couldn't keep it together for the next bit. He turned around and walked to the fire door, pushing it open and whistling over the reduced but still present sounds of the dogs eating.

_Your brother alright?_

"Walking and talking," Dean said lightly, looking at the dog. "We're going to blow this place, you need to get these guys out of here."

The dog looked critically at the man in front of him. His nose told him every precise detail of the wound and the pain and the blood still flowing.

_You need to get that fixed up._

"As soon as we're all out of here," Dean assured him, looking around. There wasn't much left of Leo but a few tattered shreds of cloth and pulled apart bones. Weird animal attack, he wondered? It would drive the cops around the bend, but it couldn't be traced back to anything else without the information inside the restaurant.

He watched the dog trot over to the others, too far to hear them, too tired to care about how the Colonel was going to dissolve his impromptu cavalry. Leaning against the side of the car, Dean closed his eyes and waited.

* * *

><p>Sam came out of the building three minutes later, nodding to him as he walked over.<p>

"They get out?"

"Yeah." Dean looked at the restaurant. "How long?"

Holding up his phone and waggling it, Sam gave him a one-sided smile. "When I say."

"Huh."

"Get in the car," his brother ordered. "I'll drive."

He thought about arguing briefly then gave up the idea, hauling open the passenger door and sliding in. Sam started the engine and backed them out of the alley, turning onto Main Street and heading north.

"Clean up."

Dean turned his head as Sam spoke into his phone. Behind them, there was a muffled whoompf as the mid-section of the building blew up, and he saw the brilliant yellow light outlining his brother's features, reflecting from the rearview mirror.

"That oughta do it."

Sam nodded.

* * *

><p>The bakery was closed but the lights on inside spilled across the sidewalk through the half-open blinds and Dean looked down at the Colonel as the dog was hugged enthusiastically by Olivia Camrose, the corners of his mouth tucking in at the dog's surprisingly transparent expression. Under the thick layers of gauze and tightly wrapped elastic bandage, his shoulder was throbbing, but he could feel a reluctance to say goodbye to the mutt.<p>

_This is the best you could come up with?_

"Aren't you the sweetest?" she gushed, pressing her cheek along the Colonel's.

Dean ignored both comments and looked at the couple. Combination therapy had reduced the network of dead blood vessels and flesh around their eyes, although Dylan said it would take months of skin grafts to get them looking anything like normal again. Bandages and stitches for awhile, Olivia had added uncomfortably. The dog would help them take their minds off that at least.

"You must be starving," Olivia said, getting to her feet. "Lucky for you, I baked some vegan doggie cupcakes. Hon, can you help set up the bed?"

"Yep," Dylan agreed, looking at Dean. "I'll let you say bye."

"Thanks." Dean waited until they'd left the room and crouched down next to the Colonel.

_I'm gonna be pooping wheatgrass and soy for the rest of my natural life._

"Better than the shelter, isn't it?" Dean countered mildly. "Maybe you can convince 'em that meat's not all that bad?"

The dog looked around the bakery. _Yeah, and then I'll run for President_.

"I wish we could take you on the road," Dean told him, rubbing behind the dog's ears automatically. "But it's no life for a dog."

_Don't sweat it, kid. I get car-sick anyway._

"What?"

The Colonel looked away. _I barfed in the back of yours. Just, heh, too chickenshit to tell you about it._

"What!?"

_No one's perfect. You did good, with that thing._

"I had help," Dean reminded him. "A lot of it."

_One good turn deserves another. Pack loyalty doesn't come to everyone. You earned it._

"Colonel? Come and get it, boy!" Olivia appeared from the back, holding a large metal bowl.

_Smells like – _

Dean snorted. "Take care of him," he said to the couple, dropping the leash.

"We will!"

"Thank you!"

He nodded and turned for the door.

In the lot behind the bakery, Sam was waiting next to the car, leaning on the roof. Dean came down the shallow steps, head snapping around as he heard a clunk. On the lid of the dumpster, a scrawny cat was frozen, staring at him.

"Good pickings?" he asked it.

_What would you ca–_

The rest of whatever it'd been about to say dissolved into a whining meow and it spun around and disappeared.

"Go alright?" Sam asked.

"Bad news is that I'm going to miss the fleabag," Dean said, feeling a faint headache behind his eyes. "Good news is that it looks like the spell is finally wearing off," he added, glancing back at the dumpster.

Sam nodded, his gaze dropping to the roof of the car. Dean looked at his expression, feeling his stomach drop a little. Sam'd had too much time to think out here.

"You okay? Leo got you pretty good."

"Yeah, I'm fine," Sam told him, straightening up a little and looking away. "I – I just can't stop thinking about what he said."

"C'mon, Sammy," Dean said, trying to inject some kind of derision into his voice. "Guy was out of his fucking gourd!"

"Yeah, but …" Sam shook his head. "…why – why would he ask that? Why would he want to know _what_ I was?"

The emphasis caught at Dean. "Who the hell knows?" he said quickly. "He was all jacked up on juice, you know, he was possessed by – by something he couldn't control – it was …"

The words trailed away as another implication hit him and Sam looked at him quizzically.

"It was only a matter of time before it completely took over," he finished unwillingly, not wanting to hear that out loud, not sure why he'd let it out like that. He looked up at his brother, catching Sam's narrowed look. "You can't reason with crazy, right?"

"I don't know," Sam said, looking away. Crazy had been his whole life. He'd thought – he'd _hoped_ – that part was finally over.

"Well, I do," Dean said, sucking back his doubts and forcing himself to look at his brother squarely. "Trust me, Sammy, you got nothing to worry about."

Sam nodded, opening the driver's door and getting in. On the other side of the car, Dean let out his breath, eyes closing for a moment. He got in, looking obliquely at his brother as Sam started the engine and pulled out.

_Grinding away at jobs we hate! Forced into choices that are the last thing we'd ever choose if there wasn't any other way!_ Leo's words echoed back in his thoughts and he leaned back into the corner between door and seat, closing his eyes. Too many more of these talks and his brother was going to figure it out, he thought uneasily, Sammy's monster brain pattern-matching away in the background, connecting the all the dots.

* * *

><p><em><strong>I-35 N, Kansas<strong>_

Sam glanced at the hunched figure at the other end of the seat, looking back at the road.

_What are you?!_

He still couldn't get the incredulity in the chef's voice out of his head. As if he'd been something other than human. As if he'd been … he didn't know what.

He'd confessed and he'd felt the blood burn out of him. That was done. _Gone_, he told himself firmly. But there were other things, things he couldn't quite remember, couldn't quite make sense of, things that fluttered in his dreams and woke him with a cold sense of disorientation, or a thick flush of heated fear, or an emptiness that mired him in indecision and a creeping dread.

He tried to set aside the amorphous tangle of thought and half-memory and murky emotion, tried to get back to a clear plan. Kevin was struggling with the tablets, or at least with his fear of getting lost and disappearing in them. There wasn't much they could do to help with that, they needed to know everything that was on them, needed the power that would give them. And they needed him as well to make the almost-obsolete but in some ways far-advanced technology of the order work for them as well. He kept seeing the situation table in his mind's eye, lit up with the locations of the angels – and maybe, the demons as well if they could work out a key for them, he thought, giving them a way to go after them and get rid of them one by one. Crowley wasn't budging, although he had the feeling that the demon wasn't as in command as he made out to be. He'd thought that Crowley had experienced remorse, in the church, at the end. Had that been for what he'd done, he wondered? Or for what had happened to him?

Dean muttered something and he looked over at his brother, seeing him move restlessly, the dashlights outlining the edge of a drawn brow. He eased off the accelerator and leaned over, his fingertips light on Dean's temple, looking at him more closely when he felt heat there.

When they'd gotten back to the car, he'd patched the deep cut as well as he'd could with the med kit from the trunk, cleaning it out with a saline solution and filling it with antibiotic powder. Had he missed something? They hadn't brought the order's unguents with them, he needed to make up more from the recipes in the apothecary. He leaned over further and felt his fingers slip over wet skin as they touched his brother's forehead.

He was sweating and feverish, Sam realised, straightening up and putting his foot down.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

"Is he going to be okay?"

Sam turned to see Kevin at the door of the dim room, hovering with his hand still on the doorknob.

"Yeah," he said, injecting a certainty he didn't really feel into his voice. Physically, he'd be fine, he thought. For everything else, the odds weren't good. "He's made it through a lot worse."

"Do you need me to do anything, Sam?" Kevin took a small step into the room.

Shaking his head, Sam made an effort to stretch his mouth into some kind of a smile. "No, we're good."

Kevin nodded and stepped back, drawing the door closed behind him and Sam turned back to look at his brother.

The antibiotics and anti-inflammatories had begun to deal with the infection and fever, the redness surrounding the deep cut had slowly started to retreat, and he'd watched with relief as the order's healing paste had drawn the edges together around his stitches, his brother's skin fading to pink then white.

Against the pillow, Dean's face looked thin and pale, his hair darker, the shadows surrounding his eyes standing out like bruises. Watching him without him knowing about it, Sam swore inwardly to himself as he realised that Dean had been hiding something from him, the lines of tension bracketing his mouth and around his eyes were still present, even unconscious.

Was it just his brother's fear about him? Dean'd brushed off the day spent out of it in the car after the angels had fallen. But since then, he'd been asking on a regular basis, he thought, asking how he felt, if he was okay, insisting that he rest, that he shouldn't overlook the effects of the trials … it wasn't exactly unlike him, he thought, frowning as he remembered the last few months, but he wouldn't have been doing it all unless he'd been afraid that something had gone wrong.

What could've?

He felt fine, he thought, mentally assaying himself. A little tired from the last job and the worry about his brother, but everything physical was functioning okay and aside from the odd dreams, he felt better, emotionally, about himself, than he had in years. Felt like he could be normal – like he _was_ normal. He hadn't finished the contract he'd begun, but it didn't seem like that had any repercussions beyond his collapse at the church.

Looking thoughtfully at his brother, brow creased up as he tried to go through all that'd happened in the last few weeks, he couldn't find a logical reason for Dean's worry about him.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Five days later.<strong>_

Flexing his shoulder cautiously, Dean looked around the library. Sam'd taken the stitches out two days ago, and there wasn't anything but a dark red knotted line, running over the collarbone and a couple of inches below, to show of the injury. The healing paste had stunk and burned for a day or so, then had numbed everything. He could use his hand and it still had most of its strength.

He looked down the length of the room to the situation table, his brother's head bowed over the computer on it. Sam'd been silent and withdrawn for the past few days, brooding over something, he wasn't sure what. It was making him uneasy, never a good thing when Sam went dark with his mental processes.

"Hey," he said, walking down the room toward him.

Glancing up, Sam nodded, his gaze going to straight to his brother's right shoulder.

"How's it feel?"

"Good, just stiff," Dean said, walking casually behind him to take a chair on the other side, his gaze sliding sideways. He saw a dozen open windows on the screen as he passed by, catching the headline and date of one. The night the angels had fallen.

"Where's Kevin?" he asked.

"In the office, still looking for Metatron's spell," Sam told him, leaning back slightly in his chair. "I looked in on him earlier, he's writing something down."

"Good," Dean said, looking down at the table. "Okay."

"The, uh, pain from that affecting your sleep?" Sam asked diffidently, waving a hand in the general direction of his brother's shoulder.

"No. Mostly gone now."

"Uh huh." Sam nodded. "So there's some other reason you're not getting more than about four hours?"

Dean looked across at him sharply. "Just the usual."

"What _is_ 'the usual', Dean?" Sam leaned toward him, his tone blunt.

"Find any jobs?" Dean looked at the laptop pointedly. "Weird deaths? Angel locations? Demonic signs?"

"No, all quiet." Sam's frustration gusted out in a deep exhale. "What are the nightmares about?"

For a long moment, Dean looked at the wall behind his brother, debating the pros and cons of tossing his brother something to deflect the questions that would only escalate and create further suspicion if he thought he was being kept in the dark. Then he shook his head.

"I don't know," he said. "I got about ten lifetime's worth of crappy memories, Sam. There's a lot of scope." He looked at him. "They're not 'about' anything in particular."

He could feel his brother's curiosity, probing at him as their eyes met. He wasn't buying it, not completely, but he wasn't arguing about it either.

"You remember after Cas took off with the angel tablet, Dean?" Sam asked him. "When we agreed that we'd stick to the truth, not get back into that shit of lying to each other?"

Sighing inwardly, Dean shrugged. "Yeah."

"That still holds, right? You don't lie to me, I don't lie to you?"

He fought against the urge to look away, keeping his eyes on Sam's. "Yeah, that's the deal."

"Alright."

Dean watched him look back at the laptop screen, his hand returning to the mouse as he shut down the windows.

_Lying about lying now_, he thought, getting up and walking back to the library steps.

_Yeah, I might have lied. But I never once betrayed you._

A lot of the memories of what he'd said to Sam, when he'd been possessed by the spectre, had come back, in bits and pieces, in sharp-edged fragments in his dreams. He swallowed at that memory, throwing the accusation at his brother. He couldn't say that anymore, could he? There wasn't much that could've been more of a betrayal to Sam than helping the angel possess him.

Stopping in the doorway to the kitchen, he leaned against the door frame, eyes closing tiredly as a wave of guilt and shame rose up and swallowed him whole. Sam would understand, he told himself. He'd _make_ him understand that there was nothing else he could've done, no other way to save him, to make it come out right.

Down past the memories and the feelings he tried to not to acknowledge, down below the holes and the emptiness and somewhere in the middle of the wasteland, where he lived and breathed and it was just him, he felt himself shrink a little, a worm of doubt creeping through him.


	11. Chapter 11 Working for the Man

**Chapter 11 Working for the Man**

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

Kevin stared down at the pages in front of him. They were covered in symbols, writing, he hoped, although he couldn't read it, couldn't even recognise it. He glanced at the tablet beside him, his forehead wrinkling up in an unconscious frown.

Up till the previous evening, the message from the stone had come through in clear if convoluted waves of meaning. The demon tablet, and before that, the leviathan tablet, had flowed in the same way, filling his mind with archaic images and labyrinthine mazes of understanding that translated would have taken more room than the Library of Congress several times over. But it had been clear and he'd been able to slowly pick through that knowledge for the answers he'd been seeking.

Until last night.

He hadn't sensed a difference in the flow of the Word until it had let go of him, and he'd slumped forward over the desk, his hand slipping from the waxy surface of the rock and his head hitting the rustling piles of notes in front of him, and his eyes had slowly focussed on the chicken scratchings that he'd written down in the trance.

Worse than chicken scratchings, he thought now, looking at them. Indecipherable poop and he had no idea how or why it'd happened. He lifted the top page from the pile and got up, carrying it to the flatbed scanner Sam'd brought in a week ago and hooked up to the laptop that Charlie had set up for him.

As the images loaded, he opened a search engine on the laptop and transferred one section. The engine churned through nodes and networks, across the country and then across the world, looking for a match. After a minute with no results, he got up and left it running, heading for the door.

* * *

><p>Dean walked along the line of shelving at the rear of the huge garage, checking off the items that were still neatly oiled and stacked along them. Mufflers and rubber hose, fine steel tubing and thicker round pipe, filters and distributors and carburettor spares, still in their boxes, there were spares for every vehicle, four or two-wheeled, in the garage and a lot more, presumably for the cars of the members who hadn't left their rides here when the place had been shut down.<p>

He came to the end of the garage and turned to follow the wall, this section not lined, but rough cut from the bedrock into which the foundations had been inset and keyed. Work benches held vices, an old-fashioned screw-down drill press, a slow grinder, pipe bender and sheet metal folding press. Unlike the workshops in the upper levels, all the tools here were commercial sized, for working on large machinery, and beside the benches, shelving and drawer units held the finest German and American steel tools, socket and spanner sets in every size and in both metric and Imperial. Old wooden drawer and cabinets contained screwdrivers, hammers, wire brushes, drill sets, grinding discs and in the corner, a massive gas welder, its hoses and attachments precisely coiled beside it. He couldn't help the slight grin at the sight of it.

Pivoting on one foot, he turned back to the centre aisle and looked at her, sitting in gleaming, immaculate perfection in the middle of the garage. He could've backed her into one of the empty slots, but aside from the considerations of leaving at speed, he thought it was more appropriate that she wasn't treated like the others, just one of many. She'd saved his ass too many times.

Having practically rebuilt her twice now, he knew her more intimately than any person in his life. Certainly she was more understandable and predictable than anyone else. All he needed to do was follow a certain number of rules and she would start and go and do her best for him and if she ever let him down, it was because of something he'd done, not from her choice.

On the shelving closest to her new parking spot, he'd stacked and sorted parts that the firm had sourced for him, from wreckers and enthusiasts and companies across the country, and he looked at them with a deep satisfaction. There wasn't anything else he needed to keep her young for another twenty years. Above the work area, two chain hoists hung in the shadows of the high ceiling, and cleverly recessed into the floor under his feet, a monster hydraulic lift was marked out clearly, with a capacity of eight tons, more than enough to give him whatever access he needed to the underside of any one of the cars the garage held. It was, he thought, very close to happiness, his ideal car workshop.

"Dean?"

"Down here," he called back, looking past the car to the stairs that led to the elevator. "At the back."

"Right," Sam climbed the stairs and walked toward him, glancing at the car as he passed it. "You washed it again?"

Ducking his head, Dean allowed a half-shrug as a response. His shoulder still ached a little but the only way through that was exercise. "Wax on, wax off," he quipped. "What's up?"

"Kevin." Sam looked at him. "And he seems agitated about something, sent me down to look for you."

"When is he is not agitated about something?" Dean asked, wondering if he needed to go and get some more of the little blue pills that smoothed out all the wrinkles in the kid's psyche.

"More agitated than usual," Sam amended. "How's the shoulder?"

"Full movement." Dean lengthened his stride, letting his fingertips trail over the car unconsciously as he passed her. "Can't ask for more than that."

"How'd you sleep last night?"

The question wasn't unexpected. Some variation of it appeared every morning, his brother's unsubtle approach to breaking through the walls he perceived between them – hammer at it until it crumbles. He should've known it was the least likely of all possible ways to get an answer, Dean thought, his mouth twisting up in a derisive smile.

"Good, no dreams," he answered blandly, glancing back over his shoulder as they walked down the stairs. "You?"

"Got woken up sometime around three," Sam shot back, his lips thinning in frustration. "Someone was banging around in the kitchen."

Dean looked at him in surprise. "You heard that?"

"What were you doing?"

"Looking for that little pot that I was – never mind," he said, scowling as he realised he'd been about to tell his brother the whole thing. "I knocked some crap over and it got out of hand for a couple of minutes."

"Sounded like it."

"Sorry."

"What did you want a pot for at three in the morning?" Sam persisted, pulling the gate shut as they squeezed into the small elevator. Dean shrugged.

"I felt like having something hot."

Sam looked at him, his breath escaping in a long sigh. "There're some things in the apothecary. Recipes. I could make them up, if you're in pain, or if you're having trouble sleeping."

Shaking his head, Dean let his knees sag a little as he saw the light come on for the first floor. "No need."

"Dean –"

The door opened and Dean pulled opened the gate with a rattling and bang, stepping into the narrow hallway that led around to the situation room. He heard his brother's soft mutter as he reached the round room.

"This isn't over."

It is for now, he thought, catching sight of Kevin sitting slumped over the first table in the library and hurrying toward him.

"What's the story?"

Kevin looked up at him, his face bleak and Dean slowed abruptly.

"There's a problem."

"With the tablet?" he asked, dropping into the chair opposite the prophet. "What kind of problem."

Kevin's gaze flicked to Sam. "For some reason, I reached a section where the translation isn't coming through in the usual way."

"What's the usual way?" Sam asked, leaning against the end of the table.

"More or less in a form I can understand and transcribe into English," Kevin said, pushing a pile of notes toward them both.

"How _is_ it coming through?" Dean asked warily, picking up the sheet closest to him, his brows rising as he looked at it.

"In that," Kevin nodded, waving a hand at the papers.

"What is this?"

"I don't know," Kevin admitted. "It's not unknown, exactly, but only three existing samples of that written language exist in the world and no one has found a key to them yet."

Sam frowned. "An extinct language, like, um, Sumerian or Elamite?"

"Not either of those," Kevin said heavily. "The samples pre-date the Sumerian cuneiform by almost a thousand years, and the writing doesn't relate to either Sumerian or Elamite or Akkadian, all of which have been deciphered by scholars to a reasonable level of translation since the late eighteen hundreds," he continued, reaching out for the laptop and turning it around. "It's been called Huzzimite, and the only theory at the moment is that because the samples are much older than Sumerian, it has to be a kind of a hoax."

"Why?" Dean looked at the complex arrangements of repeating symbols that filled the sheet he held.

"Because the oldest true written language is Sumerian, and that –" He gestured wildly at the pages. "– is significantly more complex and sophisticated than what the Sumerians used, even when their language had progressed from cuneiform to rudimentary phonology."

"And why would you translate the tablet into this?" Sam looked at him and Kevin saw the frustration in his face.

"I didn't do it deliberately!" he said, leaning back in his chair. "I don't have any conscious control over the process, what's written in the tablet comes out mostly in a way I can interpret. This time it didn't."

Dean looked at him thoughtfully, then turned to Sam. "You think this is the bit we're interested in? Metatron's personal add-ins?"

"What else could it be?" Kevin said, looking from him to Sam. "It's completely different to the rest of the tablet, and it's not like the demon tablet, where his notes were interspersed through the Word, this is – it's – it's like a closed section – maybe he thought he'd hide the spell inside the Word, to keep it available and safe, I don't know!"

Pointing to the laptop, he crossed his arms and slouched back in his chair. "I can't read it. I don't know what it says. And according to that, no one else does either."

Sam walked around the end of the table and pulled the laptop closer to both himself and Dean, leaning toward it. On the screen, the three hits that Kevin's search had returned were up and he clicked on the first.

"Dr Byrd discusses the reconstruction of phonological constraints within an Optimal Theoretic framework of Proto-Indo-European languages and the lack of relational comparisons with the so-called pre-Sumerian written language …" Sam trailed off as he skimmed the rest of the page.

"You got that in English?" Dean looked past him to the screen.

"Not really," Sam said, scrolling down. "It's pretty dense all the way through."

"So if the leading, uh, linguists don't know about it, how the hell are we going to find out if it's the spell?"

Staring at the screen, Sam was wondering that himself. He alt-tabbed to the search engine for the order, typing in Huzzimite and a list of key words that might bring up a reference to the language that seemed to have been used in 4000 BC.

Charlie's program searched diligently through all the records the order's computer had in its databanks.

"Okay." Sam looked up. "The library has a section on ancient languages, on the third level. There are a hundred and thirty references to what might be this language, but most of those texts couldn't be copied into the machine since they didn't have access to the optical scanning equipment we do now, so we need to start reading."

His gaze slid sideways to his brother, who stiffened slightly at the suggestion. "Problem?"

"Nope," Dean said, looking back at him squarely. "Just wondering where the nearest bottle of Tylenol is."

Rubbing the back of his neck, Sam nodded. "I'll grab a bottle on the way up."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Rexford, Idaho<strong>_

Nora Franklin pushed through the glass doors of the Rexford Gas'n'Sip expecting the worst. The day had begun with her alarm clock fritzing out for no apparent reason, Tanya throwing her mushed up breakfast over the floor twice, making her too late for her neighbour to take her to daycare, a succession of red lights that would've tested the patience of a saint, particularly as the last three had no cross-traffic going through at all … all of it was telling her that she should've just called in sick and spent the day in pj's playing with her daughter and not leaving the house. Her gaze flicked from one side of the store to the other, noting with an increasingly pleasant surprise that the coffee pots were full, every counter and machine wiped and sparkling clean, the morning deliveries of milk, bread and papers had been accepted and already unpacked, the crates taken out the back … she hung up her coat and looked down the counter at the guy who'd started last week with her first genuine smile of the day.

"Sorry I'm late, but I can see I was worrying needlessly," she said, walking along the staff side of the counter and glancing at the register, open and ready, the order books and day log set neatly back in their slots under it, and Steve undoing the string on the stack of daily papers. "Everything looks great."

"Well," the human formerly known as the angel, Castiel, said modestly. "Just doing my job."

Nora laughed. "Then you're one in a million. Where've you been all my life?"

He looked at her uncertainly.

Eighteen years of dating, two marriages and divorces, and general dealings with the opposite sex had given Nora a good sense for every type of male in existence, and she smiled a little to herself as she saw his discomfort. There were the predators and the mommy's boys, the would-be Lotharios and at the other end of the scale, the very rare, but still occasionally found, genuinely nice and caring men. She had the strong feeling that Steve was one of those, someone who could be trusted with anything, who would never let you down if you needed help. She'd met two others like him. They weren't a type that stirred any feelings in her, other than a relief that she could trust them completely, but she'd cultivated them carefully and they always came through.

"You're special, Steve," she said to him, walking past just that little bit too close for casual acquaintances.

"I can assure you," he said, his voice a little rough, almost gravelly. "I'm no different from anyone else."

"Yeah," Nora said, turning to look at him over her shoulder. "Yeah, you are."

She could feel his eyes on her, but she had the feeling he wasn't looking at her ass as she headed to the back to get her uniform. Genuinely nice guys kept their eyeline above the waist from the back and above the chest from the front and no matter what they wanted, they never pushed over the invisible boundaries for it.

Cas sighed as he watched her walk back to the staff room. He knew he wasn't proficient in judging human emotions, despite those he'd been feeling himself. Absently unpacking the papers and stacking them onto the rack next to him, he remembered Kirsten's gentle care, when she'd pulled him from the river bank and taken him to her home. She had been a simple woman, completely straightforward and without guile and he'd never had to think about what she meant or what she was thinking or feeling, she'd simply told him. Nora, he thought, glancing involuntarily toward the back, was more like Meg, in some ways. The demon had twisted every word that came out of her mouth, but he'd felt the attraction between them, like the slow-burning embers of a fire that could be fanned into flame at any time. He'd been mostly confused by her double-meanings and trick questions, but he'd felt it there nonetheless.

Nora's attention was different, somehow. Sometimes he thought he could feel her interest, at other times, it seemed to be absent completely. He looked down at the paper in his hands, and as the headline slowly registered, his musings on human emotions and the more confusing aspects of social interaction disappeared.

_Local Man Presumed Dead._

The report underneath was vague, despite being on the front page. Four people in the area had vanished in the last four weeks, their vehicles and personal belongings had been found at their homes, no known altercations, the police were baffled. The reporter had included the fact that in each case, the home of the presumed victim had been coated in some substance, currently unknown. Cas felt a primitive shiver trickle up his spine. Unexplained disappearances were not uncommon on this small world. They usually had a perfectly prosaic explanation. But sometimes they didn't.

"Steve, could you clean out and refill the Slushy machine?" Nora's voice came from the storeroom, breaking through his concerns.

"Right away," he responded automatically, looking back at the paper. Dean needed to know about this, if he didn't already.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

Closing the book in front of him, Dean rubbed a hand over his eyes and stretched back in his chair. Forty-five references a bust, he thought, glancing at Kevin and his brother, both bowed over the books they were reading, iconic students hard at their labours.

Metatron had been covering his tracks, he thought, picking up the next book in the stack beside him and glancing at the list Sam had written out about the references to the pre-Sumerian language. The method to throw out every angel from Heaven had to have come from God and according to Cas, at the time of writing, Metatron had been happy as a clam to be sitting at the feet of his Father, scribbling away. So why'd he hidden the spell when he'd transcribed the Word onto the rock? Just another angel that didn't play well with others?

"You find out anything else on that stone before you hit this bit, Kevin?" he asked.

Kevin looked up, his eyes slowly refocussing. "Uh, well, yeah, a lot about the hierarchies in Heaven, who did what … there was a section on the holy oil and why it constrains the angels …"

"What about weapons?" Dean asked. "Like the demon bombs?"

"Aside from the angel swords themselves and the holy oil if it touches the angels while it's burning, I haven't seen anything else yet."

"What?" Sam looked at his brother.

"Metatron added this non-translatable section while he was carving the rock," Dean said, gesturing at the tablet that sat in the middle of the table. "So he must've been thinking about using it, even back then."

"You don't think it's part of the Word?"

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't," Dean said with a shrug. "I just want to know what beef he could've had with his brothers when they were all supposed to be happy campers?"

"Cas might know?" Sam suggested. "He said that Metatron told him that the tablets were made after the First War, maybe there was still a lot of bad feeling up there?"

"Maybe," Dean allowed, the motivations of the dicks he'd met so far had been damned simple.

A shrill ringing came from his jeans pocket and he pulled out his phone.

"Hello?"

"I may have a – case – for you," Cas' voice came through clearly and Dean's concentration sharpened instantly on it. "Four missing in Rexford, Idaho, presumed dead but no bodies have been released to love ones. And –"

Dean frowned as a number of clacks and clunks sounded in the background.

"– a strange substance was found at the scenes," the angel continued, the noises getting louder.

"Oh, well, hello to you too, Cas," Dean said, getting up from the table and walking across the room, his relief overriding the habitual annoyance at Cas' lack of social skills. "How're you?"

"I … am … busy," Cas said.

Busy? There was a word that took in a lot of ground. Dean shook his head. He could go into the angel's adventures when he got there. "Alright, so how're we going to do this? We meet up at the scene; you want me to pick you up? What?"

At the other end of the line there was rattling noise, closely followed by a hissing.

"What the hell you doing?"

"Um, I've got my hands full over here," Cas said, the hissing noise resolving into something that sounded a lot more like gushing liquid, getting louder under the gravelly voice. "Um …"

More rattling and clicking filled the airwaves and Cas' voice dropped out.

"Cas? Hello?"

"Um … thought you'd want to know about the case," Cas said hurriedly, his voice getting higher as it was accompanied by several more bangs and a crash.

"Hey, you sure everything's–"

The call ended and he lowered the phone, looking at the screen and the number. "Okay."

Turning around, he looked at Sam. "Cas' got a case – maybe – up in Idaho. I'm gonna take a look-see."

"What?"

_Here we go_, Dean thought, heading for the stairs. "It won't take long, I'm sure I won't miss too many volumes of …" He gestured vaguely at the books on the table. "… whatever those are."

Sam scowled, pushing his chair back as Dean walked past him. "What'd he say?"

"Said four people have disappeared and a strange substance has been found at each last known place they were seen."

"That's it?"

"That's what he had," Dean agreed noncommittally. "Relax, Sam, I'll take a look, I'm sure it's nothing." He frowned. "Nothing along our kind of weird, anyway."

"Did he say anything about where he was? What he'd been doing?"

Glancing over his shoulder at his brother, who was now trailing him along the hall, Dean shook his head. "This is Cas, not exactly the most socially adept of the litter."

"Is he there? At – at – where is this at?"

"Rexford," Dean supplied shortly. "I don't know if he's there or not, he didn't say."

He stopped at the top of the stairs and turned to him. "What's the problem?"

"It's just – this is pretty vital, don't you think?" Sam waved a hand back toward the upper library. "And it sounds like you're taking off on something that might not even be a job."

"I'll check the reports, Sam, but you know, Cas doesn't have a reason to lie about this," he said heavily. "People have disappeared. No reason, everything still in place. That's something we check out – used to check out – on nothing more than a news article."

Sam ducked his head. "How long?"

"Day to get there, a day or two to look around, a day to get back," Dean said with a shrug. "If I sleep. Less if I don't."

He saw instantly that the comment had diverted his little brother from his arguments, Sam's head lifting and his expression hardening.

"I'll sleep, as much as possible," he added quickly, to forestall the lecture he could see building. "There aren't that many references left to check, and they might all pan out to a fat, fucking zero, Sam. I don't know what else we can do to nail this language problem, but Kevin might have to look for something else on the tablet until we can figure it out."

"I'm going to call around the universities," Sam told him.

Dean nodded, catching his brother's look of surprise. "Never know if someone's quietly working on – whatever the fuck it is – in the background. Good idea."

"Maybe I should go with you."

Shaking his head, Dean look past him. "No, you're right about how vital this is. If it's something big, I'll call you, but I'm just gonna take a look."

"Don't take any chances."

"Hey, it's me."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Sam said sourly, turning back down the hall to return to the library.

* * *

><p><em><strong>I-80W, Wyoming<strong>_

The sun was setting, straight into his eyes as he drove west, and he tipped the visor down, blocking out a little of the reddish light that spilled past the mountains and threw the car's shadow out long behind him.

The angel had sounded alright, he thought. No more than the usual level of peculiarity, anyway. The prefix for Idaho had accompanied the number and he had a feeling that Cas wouldn't've picked up on a job that was outside his immediate perimeter. So he was there, doing something that was keeping him … busy.

He flicked on the headlights as the sky washed through every shade and hue of gold and red, dimming to a palette of purples and pinks and dusky blues, the mountains ahead towering cutouts of indigo and charcoal. Oblivious to the panoramic display, Dean wrestled instead with his thoughts, that great, overwhelming morass of contradictions, hopelessly tangled with emotional reactions he still hadn't gotten clear.

Cas had screwed him over a few times now, and as he'd said to Sam months ago, if it'd been anyone else, he'd've stabbed them in the neck for doing it. Somehow, things had gotten smoothed over, too much going on and not enough time to even consider how that'd happened and he wondered if he had forgiven the angel, or if there just wasn't any choice but to try and forget what had happened, what Cas had done, as he had with Sam time after time.

The memory of looking down at him, slumped in the chair in that Raven's apartment, his blood still leaking from the wounds covering his chest and stomach, but slow, no longer pumped out by a beating heart, came back with a vivid clarity.

He'd felt … devastated to lose his friend, the one who knew what he'd done, but at the same time, as he'd stepped back and looked at Sam, there'd been a faint flush of relief in Cas' death as well. It'd been familiar. He'd felt the same thing when he'd fished the angel's trenchcoat from the reservoir. Because Cas' death meant that he didn't have to face up to all the mistakes, all the betrayals of trust, the lies and the omissions that had been between them, didn't have to try to remember if his memories of taking on too much responsibility had been correct or distorted, didn't have to try to deal with how to get through another relationship that had been battered and broken and try to find the pieces to put it back together.

Rubbing a hand over his face, Dean exhaled. It'd been bad enough knowing he'd have to go through it with Sam, sometime after they got through what was going on now. Having to do the same thing with Cas … he admitted to himself that there'd been a part of him that had been glad he wasn't going to have to.

Then Zeke had shown up and healed him. At a risk to Sam that he hadn't mentioned until much later.

He frowned. Considering the angel's vehemence on the subject of Cas being a danger to them, to him, why had he resurrected Cas and brought him back? It would've been easier to let him die, at least a pretty damned simple solution to the angels who'd been after him. None of it made sense and he was getting the feeling that none of it was going to make sense, not without a helluva more information than Zeke was currently sharing.

Cas was a lightning rod for every disgruntled and pissed angel on the planet. They had good reason to want him dead, he considered. When the angel'd taken on the souls of Purgatory, and the influence of the leviathan that had come with them, he'd laid waste to Heaven, killing thousands of his brothers. Then he'd left them to clean up the mess and try to reorganise themselves without a single leader. And when he'd shown up again, he'd opened the way for Metatron to take his revenge on the whole lot, working his spell and casting them out. Who wouldn't be looking for payback after that?

_Dean, I thought I was doing the right thing_, Cas'd said. _Yeah, you always do_, he'd responded, too angry to stay in the same room with him.

No soul. No conscience. No ability to figure out what was right from what seemed right. No answer to that, he thought in frustration. Cas hadn't fucked everything over deliberately. But he'd made the choice not to tell him about it deliberately. Made the choice not to trust him, deliberately.

Was that what rubbed him so raw, he wondered? That neither Sam nor Cas had ever trusted him when the worst things happened and the world's fate hung in the balance? That despite the fact that he could see clearly what they were doing wasn't the right thing, they never believed him, always choosing someone or something else to put their faith in?

Snorting with impatience, he sucked in a breath and shook his head at the questions. It didn't matter. Probably not then, definitely not now. Now, he had a brother who was too close to death for comfort, a world full of angry angels, an archdemon on the loose and no immediate, concrete way of dealing with any of it. He was lying to Sam, lying to Cas, and maybe, just maybe this was his payback, his lesson to be learned that sometimes the way the cards fell meant you couldn't follow the principles you thought you lived by, that sometimes betraying those you loved was just a part and parcel of life.

He'd cut Linda Tran loose to close the gates of Hell, cut Kevin loose to make sure Sam was okay, cut Benny lose to save Sam and Bobby … what the hell did he know about principles anyway?

Ahead, the headlights lit up the interstate and the taillights glowed like red eyes in the darkness in front of him. The tyres thrummed over the seamed concrete. The road was endless and he'd never be free of it, he thought distantly.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Rexford, Idaho<strong>_

Castiel climbed down from the ladder and looked up at the light. The new bulb glowed steadily and he nodded to himself. Another job done. There was a distinct satisfaction in what he was doing, he mused, picking up the ladder and carrying it carefully back to the storeroom. A predictability to what he did through the days that was building a sense of security and peace. It could be a false sense, that, but it felt better than running aimlessly, away from everything and toward nothing.

Nora was standing by the counter as he came back out, looking around the store thoroughly. It was almost closing and they'd both spent the last hour cleaning and making everything ready for the next day's business.

"You did a terrific job today, Steve," she said, turning to him with a smile.

"Just doing my job," Cas said, feeling a flush of discomfort at the praise. It was a strange thing, these human feelings, he felt both pleased by the compliment but also as if it shouldn't matter as much as it seemed to. It was … disorienting.

"I think you might be the most responsible man I've ever met," she said, head tilting to one side as she looked at him.

"No, I –" He looked away. Responsible wasn't a word he could apply to himself, not any more. "I'm just … trying to do things better than I have. In the past," he finished awkwardly.

"Well, I can't imagine you doing anything too bad, Steve," Nora commented, walking over to him. She ducked her head, hands clasping together as she stopped in front of him.

"Look, I don't want to take advantage of our working relationship, and I don't want to jeopardise it," she added hurriedly, seeing the confusion in his face. "It's just that, with everything, I mean, as a working, single mom, it's hard to find the time to get a date, let alone meet a really great guy, and I – tomorrow's my night off, and I know you're off too … and I was wondering if there's any chance you're … free? Tomorrow night?"

Cas looked at her, several thousand hours of television coming back to him with a rush, conversations playing out on the small screen just like this. Almost just like this.

"Um … yes?" he responded uncertainly. Had it been an invitation? It had sounded like one. Both free. To spend time together. He watched her smile widen, blue eyes lighting up at his answer.

"Yes," he added, a little more firmly, his gaze dropping.

Nora closed the distance between them, her hands resting on his shoulders as she leaned in and kissed his cheek. The sensation, although not unfamiliar, was unexpected. And pleasant.

"You're the best," she said, stepping back and turning away.

Cas frowned. He seemed to have missed something vital. Some confirmation of the invitation, he thought, his cheek tingling where her lips had pressed against it. A plan?

Perhaps she wanted to 'wing it', his friend's terminology coming back to him. See what happened. He wondered what that might entail.

"Steve, can you lock up?" Nora called out from the front and he turned around.

"Yes, of course." He watched her go through the door and pulled it closed behind her. "I'll, um, see you … tomorrow."

His vessel's heart, his heart, was beating a little faster. He moved around the store, shutting off the lights and moving the till to the safe, emptying the trash cans and thinking about what she'd said.

He was responsible, there was no doubt of that. Responsible for mass murder, for the destruction of his family, of his home. Responsible for thinking that he could make amends and making everything worse. For someone who'd tried to do the right thing, to do the best he could, he'd failed more spectacularly than any human he knew of.

_Like bolting off with the Angel tablet then losing it, because you didn't trust me. You didn't trust _me_._

Dean's words echoed in his mind again, and he leaned against the counter, his eyes closing.

_Why?_

Naomi had been controlling him for so long he hadn't been sure who trust, or what was real. It didn't really change the fact that Dean had never given him a reason to doubt that he could trust him. It didn't explain why, when Metatron had come to him later, he'd gone with him without telling his friends, without asking them for help. Without trusting in them, more than he'd trusted in the scribe who'd never earned his trust.

_We were family once. I'd have died for you. I almost did, a few times._

At the time, he'd barely heard the words, barely heard the raw plea under them, or considered the effort that plea had taken from a man who found it almost impossible to ask for anything. He'd ignored it, as he had so many other things.

And he'd made the same mistake, over and over again. He had no soul, no guiding spark to show him the way. But he'd had friends, he thought. Friends who'd been willing to lead him out of the mistakes he'd made, before they'd gotten too big. Even when they had been too big. Friends he'd betrayed and ignored and left for dead.

Considering that he knew Dean had at least two angel swords in the trunk of the black car, it was a miracle the man hadn't killed him outright for what he'd done. He didn't even know how to describe the circumstance that the eldest Winchester was still talking to him. Still trying to keep him safe.

He shut off the lights by the door and opened it, stepping through and locking it carefully behind him. One day at a time, he said to himself, the same as every other day. He would take this new life one day at a time until he finally felt he had atoned.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

"It's a bust, Kevin," Sam said tiredly, slamming the cover of the last reference file shut. "None of these refer to a key for the language."

"How old is Crowley?"

Sam turned to look at him curiously. "He died in 1693, according to his tombstone," he said. "Made a deal and went straight to Hell. Why?"

"Because when I was translating the demon tablet, Metatron had written some of the footnotes in Enochian and Crowley could read them," Kevin said, rubbing his forehead with his fingertips. "How'd he learn Enochian?"

Frowning, Sam tried to remember all the occasions he and his brother'd had dealings with the demon. "He knew a few languages, even before he became the King of Hell," he said, memories of the demon's fluency with spells in Greek and Latin coming back. "I don't know."

"Maybe he's got a leaning that way?"

"Couldn't hurt to ask."

Kevin snorted disbelievingly. "Oh, well, it could … but I don't think we've got any other options."

Sam considered him for a moment. The kid was right. Crowley would smell the opportunity as soon as he walked into the room. It couldn't be helped. They were out of good choices. That left only the only the bad ones.

"Give me the first page," he said, getting up. "You stay here."

Kevin nodded, pulling the sheet from the pile of notes that were covered in the stylised hieroglyphics.

"What if he wants his freedom for this?"

"Then we'll have to figure out another way," Sam said firmly, taking the sheet. "That's not on the table."

* * *

><p>Crowley looked at the writing briefly and back to the man in front of him.<p>

"I've been politely asking for reading material for weeks," he said dryly. "And this is what you bring me?"

Sam watched him drop the sheet to the table.

"Pass."

"Can you read it or not?" Sam asked carefully, wondering if his brother's usual response would derail the conversation or make the demon pay closer attention.

"It's by no means my favourite of the ancient tongues, but yes," Crowley allowed, and Sam saw the fractional twitch of the demon's mouth.

"Will you help us read it?"

"Why on earth would I?" Crowley asked him, the twitch developing into a one-sided smile.

"Because if you help us, I might consider giving you something in return," Sam said, staring down at him. "Because I was there, in that church, Crowley. I know how close you were to redemption, I know how much you wanted it."

He watched the demon turn away, eyes rolling. "Didn't seem to really take, did it?"

"If I did an exorcism here, now, would you be forced out of the meat you're wearing?" Sam asked him, eyes narrowing. Crowley flinched, infinitesimally, but he saw it. "You're not all demon anymore."

Crowley's gaze shifted back to him, his expression stony. "Sorry Moose, to the last drop."

Sam got to his feet, and leaned back on the table. "Crowley, the only reason you're still alive is that my brother thought you'd be useful. So far, you've done jack."

The demon's face remained expressionless and Sam straightened up, reaching for the sheet of paper and turning away as he picked it up. "Back to Plan B, I guess," he murmured as he headed for the door.

"Which is?"

Sam stopped, looking down at the paper in his hands. "Give you up to Abaddon."

"You think you can threaten me with that – that hack!?" Crowley rasped from behind him. "She's all fury – no finesse!"

Turning, Sam smiled slightly. "I don't know, Crowley. Last time we had a face-to-face, she had it all planned out, pretty terrifying to tell you the truth. A hell of lot scarier than you've been in years."

"Bring that to me."

He hid his surprise that the simplistic push had been so successful, retracing his steps to the table and handing over the sheet.

"How's it you know ancient languages, by the way?" he asked as Crowley's eyes skimmed down over the page.

The demon looked at him expressionlessly. "There's a lot of free time in Hell."

His hand closed around the sheet and crumpled it into a ball, his chains rattling as he threw it back at Sam.

Sam turned for the door, striding out and closing it behind him, the locks clunking into place with a finality as the light went out. He had the feeling that Crowley would come around, but it would be in his time.

Walking out of the filing room, he turned off the lights and locked that door as well. They had a little room to play with, but not much, he thought. Not enough to leave Crowley in the dark indefinitely.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Rexford, Idaho<strong>_

Dean pulled the car over behind the police car, glancing around at the usual busyness of a scene being processed. He'd picked up the alert on the scanner twenty miles out of town and had stopped at a fill-up to get changed.

The suit felt tight across his shoulders and the tie was throttling him, very slowly. He got out of the Impala and walked to the sheriff, showing his badge first and shaking hands as the older man nodded at him.

"Four disappearances –" he started, looking at the decrepit house behind the crime tape.

"Four deaths," the sheriff cut him off. "Got the lab results this morning."

"What'd they have in common?"

"For the most part, nothing," the sheriff said, following him under the crime tape and up the weed-infested path. "This one, Joe Green, had the suicide hotline on speed dial. Lost his family a year ago in a car accident and has been living in a bottle since. The gal before him was a shut-in, had enough antidepressants in her medicine cabinet to stock a drugstore. The first vics were a married couple out of Sugar City, they lost a baby, he got religion, she didn't, and they were regulars down at the clinic for therapy."

"So, all basket-cases," Dean said, looking at him.

The sheriff nodded. "Pretty much the headliners for this county."

"But these aren't suicides."

A deputy came up to them as they reached the porch steps. The sheriff took a pair of blue plastic booties from her, turning to hand them to Dean. "You're gonna want to put these on."

Dean took them and sighed inwardly. Local cops loved show and tell. More emphasis on the show than the tell. He pulled the booties over his shoes and cuffs and took the pair of latex gloves the deputy passed him next.

The interior of the cabin stunk. Not the ripe smell of a body decomposing, gases filling up the body and liquids seeping out, but a more universal odour of rotting meat. The walls, from the right of the doorway, around to the middle of the rear, were almost uniformly covered in a greying substance that might have started out reddish, Dean thought, peering closer at the small table next to the door. The stench was worse the closer his nose got to it. In the middle of the room a forensic tech was scraping some of the substance from the edges of a clear patch. Dean frowned as he realised that the clear patch was man-shaped.

"This look like suicide to you, Agent?" the sheriff asked, looking at the spray.

"This isn't just blood."

"No," the sheriff agreed readily. "If the results come back same as the others, and I have no reason to doubt they will, it's pretty much everything. Blood, tissue, bone, hair, cloth particles …" He shook his head. "Nothin' I know of could do this. Blast force is outward –"

"This, uh, shadow, here," Dean said, looking down at the clear floorboards. "You're thinking this is the guy that did it?"

"I don't know how, but yeah," the sheriff said. "If the vic was standing in front of him, the … explosion … would follow the path it has." He gestured slightly toward the tech. "Got a forensics team out from Boise, second scene. They've been stringing and such. Evidence agrees."

Looking around the room, Dean saw that despite the appearance of full coverage, only one side of everything was in fact covered, confirming the direction of the explosion. He shut away the image of whoever had done it, walking out of the house covered with blech from head to foot.

"What about witnesses?"

The sheriff shook his head. "Too isolated here. The shut-in, Caroline Hardy, her neighbour said she happened to be looking out the window at the time, saw a flash, said it was pink but not long-lasting. By the time we got there, all that was left was … this. No one saw anyone entering or leaving."

"I'd like to see the pathology reports," Dean said. It wasn't necessary. Whatever had come in here and blown Joe Green into microscopic particles hadn't left any trace evidence of any kind and he was pretty damned sure that he was looking for yet another pissed angel. Only the MO didn't quite agree. Burned out eyes and liquefied insides were the usual.

"Should be there tomorrow," the sheriff said. "Come around to the office."

"Thanks."

They walked out and dumped the gloves and booties in the trash can left on the porch, and he headed back to the car. There'd been a motel on the outskirts of town, he'd get a room, then go and look for Cas.

* * *

><p>An hour later, he parked the car on the opposite side of the road to the Gas'n'Sip and pulled out his phone. Sam answered on the first ring.<p>

"Hey, how's it going?"

"We're almost finished with the references," Sam's voice sounded far off and tinny over the line.

"You tried that professor in Seattle?"

"Yeah, he went on sabbatical. Twelve months in Papua New Guinea, apparently," Sam said with a sigh. "I'm working my way through a dozen other universities, but it's not a popular subject."

"So you're stuck?"

"Not entirely," Sam said slowly. "We took it to Crowley."

The silence on the end of the line was lengthy and Sam stared at the wall as he waited for his brother to come up with a half a dozen reasons why that had been a bad idea.

"And?"

"And he threw it back in my face." He looked at the ceiling. "He's having some thinking time."

"Just be careful, okay? Don't fall for any of his quid pro quo crap."

"Noted." Sam winced as he thought of the demon. "So, what about you? How's Cas' lead panning out?"

"Four vics, all in various stages of life-sucks-syndrome, all almost vaporised from the inside out," Dean said, watching the clerk behind the counter in the store opposite. "I've eliminated all the usual suspects. No hex, EMF, combustion, cultists, psychics or anything the order's got records of, at least not that I can pull up on the computer."

"That sounds like a real case," Sam said, his voice thickening with concern. "Dean, I should be there."

"No, man, it's, uh, not necessary, I got this one covered," Dean said, hoping he sounded confident. "I got some more checking to do, pathology and what the cops have on back order, I'll get back to you later, see if it rings any bells."

"Yeah, alright, but –"

"I'll talk to you later, Sam," Dean said firmly, hitting the end button. Through the plate glass window, he could see the angel, serving customers, the bright blue vest marking him out.

Clerking in a gas station. The thought was uncomfortable.

_Read the Bible_, Cas had told him in the dark kitchen of Bobby's place. _Angels are warriors of God. I'm a soldier._

It wasn't right.

_About as right as lying to Sam_, the voice in his head piped up rudely. _As right as keeping Crowley locked up instead of killing his ass for good_. As right as everything his life had turned into, over the last three years. And before.

Yeah, well this was something he could do something about, he argued with himself. He could get the damned angel out of a fucking Gas'n'Sip.

* * *

><p>Sarah Morrison-Platchett ran down the steps of the school blindly, lifting her hand to dash away the tears that were turning her vision of the big front lawn into an abstract water-colour, uncertain of where she was going but just needing to get out of the school, off the grounds, away from what'd just happened. She saw the school buses parked across the road and sped up, barely looking to either side as she crossed the street, ignoring the short beep of a car that braked hard to avoid her, wheeling around the nose of the closest bus and sagging against its side.<p>

Six months, she thought, her breath coming raggedly. Six months and then bang, in front of absolutely everyone, it was all over. Two weeks before Homecoming. Her tears rose up again and she bit down on a wail as the memory of the dress hanging in its plastic wrapping in her closet filled her mind, its promise gone with the careless condemnation of the boy she'd thought she'd loved.

She wasn't clear, in her own mind, if it was the break-up or the lack of a date for the dance that finally brought the sobs out, but she didn't want to hold them back any longer, her head throbbing and her heart aching with the pressure of trying to keep it all in long enough to just get away from everyone. Tucking her face against her arm, her tears splashed down onto the kerb, and she didn't hear the footsteps behind her.

"You are in such pain," the man's voice said and Sarah jerked her head up, spinning around to stare at him. Tall but slender, he wore black – black shirt, and pants, relieved only by the discreet gleam of a tiny gold cross in one ear. "Please, let me take it all away."

"What?"

"Don't be afraid," the man said gently, smiling at her. It was a creepy smile, and she backed up a step as he moved closer, wondering if she should scream. "I can give you peace."

Her phone rang, the sound shrill in the strange and thick silence that seemed to press around her. Looking down to pull it out of her bag, she didn't see the man take another step toward her, or lift his hand, her thumb pressing the Call button as she looked up.

"Wait -!" she gasped, trying to flinch away from the touch of his fingers on her forehead.

On the sidewalk, next to the fine spray that covered a third of the bus' side, a thin, reedy voice came from the phone. "Sarah! Sarah, you there? Are you alright?"

* * *

><p>Dean stood behind the woman, listening to the angel's patter.<p>

"Thank you, ma'am," Cas was saying. "And – good luck!"

He watched the woman turn away, smiling a little as Cas' eyes widened in surprise. "I'll have some beef jerky and a pack of menthols," he told him, grin widening.

"What are you doing here?" Cas said, looking away.

"Gee, it's nice to see you too, Cas." He felt his smile disappear.

"It's, uh –Steve – now," the angel said in a low voice, making a small gesture toward the name tag on his vest. "And, you, uh, surprised me."

"Yeah, well, the feeling is mutual," Dean remarked, watching him look furtively around. "I mean, I know you had to lay low from the angel threat but, uh, wow – this is some cover."

Cas looked around again and moved up the counter, closer to the door. Dean followed him bemusedly.

"My Grace is gone," Cas hissed at him quietly. "What did you expect?"

Frowning, Dean looked at him. "I expected you to remember that you're a warrior of God, I guess."

Cas' face screwed up at the comment. "Not any more, now I'm just – human. Do you have any idea of how hard it was when I fell to Earth? When I heard the lost cries of my brothers? I haven't just lost my power, my connection with Heaven, Dean, I've lost … everything." He straightened a little, meeting the man's eyes. "Now, I'm a sales associate."

"Sales associate," Dean repeated, looking back at him.

"Hey, Steve."

He stepped aside as the delivery man handed the angel an order book on a clipboard.

"Can you sign here?"

Cas picked up a pen and scrawled a signature across the form, handing it back. "Yes, I'm responsible for inventory, sales, customer service, I keep this place – thank you," he asided to the delivery man. "clean and presentable, and when my manager's busy, I even prepare the food."

Dean's brows rose as he took that in. "Wow. So you went from fighting evil on Earth and heavenly battles … to nuking taquitos."

Cas nodded confirmation, missing the sarcasm. "Nachos too. And if you'll excuse me, I need to restock the shelves."

Dean followed him down to the storeroom, shaking his head as the angel came out with a box of jars. "This is not you, you're above this. Come on!"

Putting the case on the counter, Cas looked down at the jars. "No, Dean. I am _not_," he said decisively. "I failed at being an angel. You know that better than anyone. Everything I ever attempted came out wrong, ruined lives, took lives –" He cut himself off and drew in a deep breath. "I am _not_ an angel now. And here, at least I have a chance of getting things right. Small things, they may be, but they are of importance to some and I cannot – I cannot be overcome by pride, here."

He looked at Dean and back at the jars. "I guess you can't see it, but there's a real dignity to what I do – a – a – human dignity," he continued softly. "I can build on this –"

"Um, Steve?" Nora called, holding a mop in one hand. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but one of the customers had an accident in the men's room."

"I'm on it," Cas said. Dean wondered how much dignity that job was going to give the angel.

"Oh, and tonight, seven at my place work for you?" Nora continued, glancing at Dean, her eyes flicking over him in a rapid and familiar appraisal that left him with a faint reminder of being of interest to the opposite sex.

Cas nodded shyly and Dean watched her gaze shift back to the angel, the smile gear-up to mega-wattage.

"Great!" she said. "You're the best." She turned away, leaving the bucket and mop by the doorway.

He turned back to Cas, seeing a quickly-hidden smile. "That's what this is about!"

"What?"

"The blonde."

"No, Dean, it's not. I – I have a lot to make up for and that's what this is about," Cas said, his gaze going involuntarily to the door Nora had disappeared through. "Nora … is a very nice woman. I'm pretty sure she's not a Raven, intent on killing me, and she's asked me out." He turned away at his friend's amused expression. "Going on dates, that's something humans do, right?"

Dean looked at him carefully. "Yeah," he said, his mouth twisting up to one side as he acknowledged that. "My dates usually end when I run out of singles, but uh, yeah. Yeah, that's something that humans do."

The smile he'd seen her give the angel, full-power and designed to dazzle, and that speculative look she'd bestowed on him formed a questionable juxtaposition in his mind and he opened his mouth to ask Cas about it when his phone rang. Pulling it out, he forgot about the woman when he heard the sheriff's voice on the other end of the line.

"I'll be right there," he said, closing the phone and looking back at Cas. "There's another kill, over at the high school. You coming?"

Cas unpacked the jars from the box to the shelves. "I wouldn't be much use, since I don't have my powers."

"So? I've never had powers," Dean said, frowning at him.

"You are a hunter," Cas said, as if the difference was self-evident.

"You wanted to be a hunter," Dean reminded him.

"And I believe your opinion was that I sucked," Cas said stiffly.

"I said that?" Dean looked away, face scrunching up a little. "I never said that, I might've said there was … uh … room for improvement? Come on."

The angel sighed. For whatever reason, he had the feeling Dean would not take no for an answer. "Alright, my shift's over in five minutes, and my date's not till later –"

"Atta boy, I'll go get the car."

"Not just yet," Cas said exasperatedly, gesturing behind him. "I have to clean the bathroom."

_Clean the bathroom_, Dean thought, watching him head for the mop and bucket. _And there it is, human dignity at its finest_. He let out the breath he'd been holding.

He got what Cas was doing. He didn't agree with it, any more than he'd agreed with the angel's attempt at penance-slash-suicide in Purgatory, or his decision to take the Lucifer-echo out of Sam's head before that. Cas' attempts to atone for what he'd done had a bad habit of backfiring on not only him but everyone around him. In the last case, on everyone in Heaven and on Earth, not to put too fine a point on it.

And it wasn't like he could do anything about taking him back to the bunker and keeping an eye on him. At least not until Zeke had vacated the premises. So why stir the poor dude up?

Walking restlessly to the front door, he realised he didn't want to look too hard at that. That it was a topic that had to do with what he'd done, down in Hell. What he'd done in Purgatory. With the memories he'd thought were sound which had turned out to be not at all accurate. There was no one else he could talk about those things. Not that he wanted to talk about them at all. But there wasn't anyone else anyway.

* * *

><p>The front of the high school was closed off, crime tape stretching across the road, keeping the rubberneckers from getting too close. Pulling in next to the tape, Dean pulled his tin from the glove box and got out, walking across the street toward the bus and the sheriff, who seemed to be interviewing one of the kids.<p>

The side of the bus away from the school was coated in the same fine spray as the room of the house, not yet decomposing although he had the feeling it wouldn't take long once the sun moved around and hit it. He slowed to look along the sidewalk, and the grassy verge beside it. The cops would've been over with a fine-toothed comb, but it was a reflex to check anyway.

"So you didn't actually talk to her?" The sheriff looked at Dean as he stopped beside them.

"No, she answered. "The line was open, but she didn't say anything and then there was a crashing noise and I thought – I thought I might've heard her scream."

The girl was maybe sixteen, Dean thought as he listened to her hesitant statement. She couldn't seem to stop herself from looking at the bus.

"God, could that really be her?" she said, and he glanced at the sheriff.

"Your friend –"

"Sarah."

"Sarah," Dean amended apologetically. "Was she depressed?"

"Depressed?"

"Any thoughts of suicide?" he clarified, watching her expression.

She flinched back from him a little, her nose wrinkling up in obvious distaste. "Ew, no."

Dean felt the sheriff's gaze shift to him at the comment, the break in the pattern too obvious. What would a teenager have to be feeling about that dying was a solid option anyway? Half his teenaged years had been spent in some kind of pain, one way or the other.

"I mean, she was kind of bummed," she said, shrugging a little. "Her boyfriend just dumped her in front of most of the school."

"Kind of bummed?" Dean pressed, wondering exactly what that meant, these days.

"Yeah," the girl said, her grief disappearing as her temper rose with impatience at his obtuseness. "Like … _more_ bummed than when she got a C on a quiz and … _less_ bummed than when her parents split up. Kind – _a_ – bummed," she finished with a _duh!_ look at him.

He saw the sheriff's mouth tuck in from the corner of his eye and sighed inwardly, looking away. Cas was no longer standing by the bus and he turned, spotting the angel back by the car.

"Excuse me," he said to the sheriff and girl automatically as he turned for the road.

* * *

><p>Cas was leaning on the side of the trunk, shoulders hunched around his ears.<p>

"Cas? What's wrong?"

The angel's head lifted slightly and he kept his voice down as he answered, "I've seen this before."

"What? Where?"

"In Heaven," Cas replied, staring at the polished black paint under his hands. "Here, during the First War."

"What? You saying an angel did this?" Dean demanded. He'd known it, he thought. Known it and hadn't known what to do with that knowledge. He did need Cas around, he thought sourly. "It's not the right, uh, MO for an angel kill, Cas – burned and melted is the usual –"

"Not a seraphim, no ordinary angel," Cas cut him off, glancing at him briefly. "Dean, this is bad. This is very bad."

Cas was almost hyperventilating. Dean looked at him and around at the vapid faces of the onlookers and gestured sharply to the car door. "Get in."


	12. Chapter 12 For Penance, Not Peace

**Chapter 12 For Penance, Not Peace**

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

Sam tilted his head, hearing the very, very faint banging noise again. Crowley'd changed his mind, he thought, getting up from the table and glancing at Kevin.

"Showtime."

The prophet nodded and got up, walking around the table to follow him up the stairs.

"Stay here," Sam cautioned him as they reached the file-room's door. "We don't need to give him any other advantages."

Kevin ducked his head, pivoting to lean against the wall as Sam opened the door and turned on the lights.

The locking shelves moved apart easily and Sam hit the lights for the dungeon room, staring at the demon stonily.

"Bring me your scratchings," Crowley told him.

"What?"

"I'll do it," Crowley said, enunciating each word clearly. "But I want something in return."

"And what's that?" Sam asked, gearing himself for the next round of negotiations.

"A telephone call," the demon said, one brow lifting.

Letting his breath out in a disbelieving sigh, Sam shook his head slightly and turned away, walking back to the door.

"C'mon, Moose!" Crowley called out from behind him. "Even Dahmer got one telephone call."

Shutting the shelves, Sam listened for the locks and leaned back against them. Kevin would be harder to negotiate with than the demon, he thought tiredly.

* * *

><p>Kevin straightened as Sam came out into the hall, his expression quizzical. "Well?"<p>

"He wants a deal," Sam said. "He'll translate the Huzzimite for a phone call."

"Can he decrypt the notes?" Kevin asked suspiciously.

Sam shrugged, he wasn't sure, not entirely. The demon was a good liar.

"Who would he be calling?"

"Hell … Abaddon, I guess," Sam said.

"To play Let's Make A Deal with her?" Kevin shook his head. "This is a bad idea, Sam."

He couldn't really disagree. "Abaddon wants Crowley dead, Kevin. And he hates her. I don't see an alliance there. Even he wanted to, he can't tell her about this place –"

"He doesn't need to!" Kevin spat out. "She resurrected her old vessel, didn't she? The one involved with the order? She probably knows about it, just doesn't know he's here –"

"Okay, okay, good point," Sam said, brow furrowing as he realised he'd forgotten that. Dean'd mentioned that there had to be a reason for the demon to do it, sentimentality not included.

"We'll be there," he said, thinking through the practicality of it. "And Crowley's bound. We can end the call whenever we want."

"What if he's lying about _all _of this, Sam?"

Straightening up against the wall, Sam nodded. "You're right. He'll have to prove it."

"He could say anything," Kevin argued softly. "How would we know?"

"We're pretty sure it's the spell, aren't we?"

Kevin nodded.

"Then we have some guidelines. D'you think you can separate out the first bit from the rest? Most spells have what you need before the procedure, right?"

* * *

><p>Crowley looked up as the shelves opened again, Sam entering, followed by Kevin.<p>

The demon looked too comfortable, Sam thought as he crossed to the table. Too confident. Setting the sheet on the table, he pushed it across to the demon.

"What're these?"

"Ingredients," Crowley said, his gaze skimming over them.

"More specific," Sam grated.

The demon smiled. "Ingredients … for a spell," he elaborated.

Kevin stared at him, his pulse racing in his chest. Sam had been very specific about this moment, about where they would stand, at forty-five degrees from Crowley's position, not letting the demon look at them together, having to turn his head to see one or the other. Not speaking unless it was absolutely necessary. Just watching. He kept his eyes fixed on the demon's face, looking for any signs that Crowley was making it up as he went, using cues from them.

Sam folded his arms across his chest and waited. The demon let out a long exhale.

"Heart of a nephilim, Cupid's Bow, Grace of an angel," Crowley told them, one brow rising.

Sam resisted the impulse to look at Kevin. Crowley could read it. Dean had told him of the cupid and Cas' Grace. From the corner of his eye, he saw Kevin lurch forward, slapping the other pages down on the table, and he grimaced inwardly. The kid was filled with desperation and the demon would drink it up.

"And the rest of them!" Kevin demanded, leaning across the table.

"Phone call," Crowley countered succinctly, leaning back in the chair. "You get the rest, when I get paid."

No quid pro quo, Dean'd said. It was too late for backing out now, and he couldn't think of a way his brother might've dealt with the demon's upper hand anyway.

"Now," Crowley said, looking from Kevin to Sam. "Who's going to be a dear and open up a vein?"

* * *

><p><em><strong>Bedford, Connecticut<strong>_

Bartholomew watched the small screen, set into the burled walnut desk in the gentleman's study he'd taken over. It was a closed-circuit screen of the waiting room down the hall and it contained a single visitor, a tall man dressed in a finely tailored suit, the fabric colour subdued, but the quality showing in the way the material draped fluidly and the subtle gleam of silk. A man after his own heart in the matters of taste, he mused.

And other things. He'd kept the man waiting for an hour and a half now, and there were no signs of restlessness, or impatience. He'd chosen a chair, and made himself comfortable, and was waiting without the fidgeting and twitches of someone who was nervous, or felt that their position had been undermined. That was interesting, the angel thought. He hadn't met a human like that.

The facial recognition software had failed to match the visitor's image. And the fingerprints, taken from a cup of coffee served forty minutes ago, had not returned any hits, from any of the law enforcement databases, either national or international. He glanced at the card the man had given his subordinate on arrival.

Elysium Imports, an address in San Francisco, the design of the card simple and elegant.

The import company had been legitimate. Established in 1948, it imported rare and expensive objet d'art from all over the world and provided authentications and information on pieces for collectors all over the country.

He could keep the man waiting for another three hours, he thought, and it would not garner any further information. Pressing the intercom on the desk, he told Iskael to accompany the man in. He leaned back in the chair, staring at the study door, his fingers steepling under his chin, a habit he'd acquired from an archangel now dead.

Iskael opened the door and the man walked in, nodded politely in acknowledgement of the woman as he passed her, then turned his gaze to Bartholomew.

"Thank you for seeing me at such short notice," he said and the angel noted that his voice was deep, a mellow timbre, well educated but not in this country.

"I'm sorry to have kept you waiting for so long," Bartholomew replied, gesturing to the chairs in front of the desk. "How can I help you?"

"I'm here in the position of broker, actually," the man said. "I have a proposition regarding the current situation you and your … following … find yourselves in."

"The current situation?"

"One faction among many?" the man said, his mouth quirking up at one corner. "The party I represent would like to offer his help to resolve that."

Bartholomew leaned forward slightly. "And how, exactly, do you propose to do that?"

"You all want the same thing," the man said. "To regain your home. Persuasion alone has failed to unite you and killing each other only reduces your numbers – numbers you will need eventually."

"Tell me something I don't know."

"There is a war coming, Bartholomew," the man said, and he felt himself flinch at the name. "The proposition is that you and those who are loyal to you are ensured of being on the winning side."

"I could hold you," the angel said coolly. "Torture you for whatever information you have."

"You could," the man agreed with a smile. "But then the proposition would be withdrawn and you would not get what you want."

Studying him, Bartholomew acknowledged that he was probably right. He didn't have the look of someone who would break easily – or possibly at all. And he needed something to bring the others around to his way of thinking, to push out Malachi and Tyrus.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Rexford, Idaho<strong>_

Dean looked around the crowds who still clung to the crime scene tape, more of them closer to the bus, but still a few peering at them curiously. The windows were closed and he hoped that would be enough to keep their conversation mostly private. He turned to look back at the angel.

"All right, spill."

Cas looked down at his hands, clasped uncomfortably on his lap. "On the battlefields, when angel fought angel in Heaven and on earth, or demons, here and in the Accursed plane, there was a special class of angel … the Rit Zien," he said slowly, memories flitting through his mind, more like snapshots. "It's Enochian for 'mercy of the hands' literally. They functioned like medics, tending to the wounded, they healed those who could be healed, but … for the mortally wounded, those who were beyond saving, the Rit Zien's job was to end their suffering and give them peace."

"Like the granulated bodies?" Dean asked.

"This was their … special ability," Cas tried to explain. "They had this way of smiting that was so quick and so complete that it rendered death painless." He looked at the man beside him. "You understand that the constructs of angels are different from the mortal bodies you – we – inhabit. The constructs are frameworks for the harmonies of the celestial frequencies and annihilation was the only way to ensure that peace could be found, not a single atom left intact."

"Right," Dean said, shunting that concept aside. "But these aren't wounded angels they're vaporising, they're people."

"Yes," Cas said, looking away. "I don't know. The Rit Zien feel pain, they home in on it, it's like a beacon to them." He closed his eyes. "When this angel fell to Earth … Dean, there is a lot of pain here, more so since my brothers fell. He is continuing his heavenly work, trying to bring peace –"

"Cas, that kid," Dean said, gesturing toward the bus. "got dumped by her boyfriend of six months – that's not a mortal wound! God, half the teenagers on the planet go through that a dozen times before they get to graduation!"

Cas opened his eyes. "Angels do not feel emotion, not in the same way that humans do. The ebb and flow of emotion, of the way humans feel, it's overwhelming to us, far worse than physical pain, it persists in the aether surrounding the planet, in the rocks of your buildings, in the very soil itself where blood and anguish has been spilled. To a Rit Zien, it's the equivalent of being in a locked room, filled with screams. His function is to end suffering, to ease torment. He doesn't have experience of humanity's fluctuations," he explained slowly.

Dean looked out through the windshield, feeling his defences closing up at the angel's words. How many times had Cas felt his pain, he wondered uneasily. How many times had his feelings bled through the walls and barriers he'd built around himself and told the angel exactly what was going on with him? He cleared his throat uncomfortably.

"So everyone's fair game?" he asked, keeping his gaze on the road.

In the context of the angel's explanation, a million examples presented themselves in his imagination, his own included. The purely physical pain that was all-encompassing but not fatal, and the deeper, longer-lasting pain of loss, of betrayal, of shame and guilt and things left undone, unsaid, unhealed grief and losses that most people carried with them, their penance a life sentence, choices that continued to affect every aspect of their lives. This angel would be busy for all eternity if he was serious about getting rid of the people who were hurting.

"Alright. Well, we gotta stop him."

"You have to stop him," Cas corrected softly, looking at him.

His tone caught at Dean, and he turned to look at him carefully. "You scared?"

Cas nodded unwillingly, bowing his head. "It's different now, Dean. Everything feels … I feel. Too much."

The shame in the angel was easy to see, Dean thought. And he was right. It was all different when it was for keeps. Maybe Cas would find a way to be human, to learn what he needed to, if he kept his head down and just plugged away at it. Maybe he'd learn through experience what a lack of a soul could not give him. All those human pains that refined and honed a person until all that was left was just themselves, forged from the choices they made and the load they carried and how they dealt with it all.

"You're right," he said, lifting his hand to the wheel and looking ahead. "Alright, I'll track down this angel and I'll put him down."

Cas felt a surge of some emotion, painful and filling his chest with a tightness that he could hardly breathe through. Was it regret, he wondered? Shame? Sorrowful guilt at once again leaving the job that needed to be done to the man beside him? At the same time, he felt something else, something that eased his fears, that leavened the feeling that he was going to die a lot sooner than his allotted span of years. The contradiction between the two robbed his voice of any depth.

"Okay."

Dean glanced back at him. "You stay safe," he said, ignoring and shutting away the sense of loss he felt, pushing it back behind the walls. He'd hunted alone before. He could do it now. And the angel deserved some time to figure out what it meant to be human, since the other options were gone.

"Hey, go on that date," he added, face screwing up a little with the effort that took. "Go live a normal life."

"Okay," Cas agreed. He ignored the faint hint of pain he could hear in Dean's voice carefully.

Dean turned the key and the black car's engine rumbled into life. He glanced back at the angel as Cas made no move to get out.

"Well?"

Cas turned his head to look at him. "I need a ride," Cas admitted apologetically.

The matter-of-fact requirement, after the life-and-death conversation, tickled him perversely into a wry smile. Life was like that, he wanted to say to the angel. One minute you're on the brink of the end, the next you realise you need find an open store 'cause you're out of milk.

"Right."

He put the car in gear and pulled out, heading down the street, half his mind occupied with considering and eliminating ways of finding the angel, trapping it in holy oil and getting rid of it, the other half still poking at the thoughts of pain and guilt Cas had stirred up.

_I don't need to feel like hell for failing you, okay? For failing you like I've failed every other godforsaken thing that I care about! I don't need it!_

The memory jumped out at him and he gripped the wheel hard, the muscle at the point of his jaw bulging out in reaction. The admission had come out involuntarily, the angel pushing at him to remember how Purgatory had really been and he hadn't even known that the feelings of failure had run through everything, everything he'd done and tried to do, every decision he'd made, every loss he'd endured until it'd come out, his voice cracking like a whip in despair.

_Apocalypse or no apocalypse ... monsters or no monsters, that's a crushing weight to have on your shoulders. To feel like six billion lives depend on you ... God ... how do you get up in the morning?_

_Self-therapy_, Sam'd speculated, when he'd told his brother a bit about that experience, a lot later on. Talking to a more objective, rational part of himself under the wraith's poison, trying to make sense of something that could never make sense. He felt a cold flush chill him from the inside out and kept his eyes on the road, not wanting to look at the angel – _ex-angel_ – beside him in case Cas was picking up on any of this crap.

The pain that he lived with, got up with, went to sleep with, that lay at the centre of him and was never depleted, never healed over or disappeared or even diluted very much by the occasional win they'd had over the years … when was he going to deal with it? He snorted derisively, the soft noise hidden under the engine's growl. _Try never_. He didn't know where to start, didn't know _how_ to start. It was as much a part of him as the colour of his eyes, the small scar across his chin, the repeatedly broken and healed lumpy knuckles of his hands.

"Got an address?" he asked, shoving it all away and back and down as he looked at his watch. It was a quarter to seven. He turned on the headlights as the street-lights came on around them.

"46 Roundtree Street," Cas supplied, looking up and gesturing to the other side of town. "Not far."

Dean nodded, and followed the angel's directions, taking his foot off the accelerator and repressing his impatience as it became apparent that Cas was having some trouble differentiating between his rights and lefts.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

Sam pulled out the blood bag and set it on the table next to the beaten bronze bowl.

"Tsk, tsk," Crowley remonstrated happily, looking up at him. "Can't use that stuff, needs warm, fresh-from-the-body blood."

"Fine," Sam snapped, lifting a scalpel from the small kit he'd brought in.

"Not yours."

"What difference does it make?" he asked the demon, his lip curling up in rising frustration.

"I've had yours," Crowley said, glancing at Kevin. "Stuck in here, you can't fault me for wanting a little variety."

"You're not drinking it!"

The demon laughed delightedly at the idea. "No, but let's not quibble when time's so short, yeah?"

"No way!" Kevin said from the other side of the room.

"What's wrong, Short Round? 'Fraid of a little cut?" Crowley looked at him, lips curved in a small smirk.

"No," Kevin said, more quietly as he walked across the room to the table, staring at Crowley. "I just have a policy of not giving blood to anyone who's murdered my mother."

Crowley tucked his chin against his chest, looking down at the bowl on the table and smiling. "I have nothing but time."

Sam huffed. "You're a dick," he told the demon, tucking the blood bag and scalpel back into the kit.

"Good luck with that translation," Crowley offered pleasantly.

Kevin's mouth thinned out and he reached for the scalpel, staring at the demon as he flexed his left hand a few times, until the vein running along the inside of his elbow stood out against the skin. The nick was small, Sam was glad to see, and the prophet turned his arm, fist clenched as the blood flowed sluggishly into the bowl below. Crowley nodded as the bottom was covered.

"_Inferni septu a te es, nunc audite Regim_!"

The blood bubbled in the bowl as Kevin turned away, a cotton ball and tape covering the cut, his arm lifted to hold the dressing tight against it.

Sam shifted as he heard the whispers from the bowl, more than a single voice, he thought, replaying the incantation in his head. Seven? _Seven of Hell, hear the King?_

"This is Crowley," the demon said loudly. "Connect me to –" He looked at the bowl, his gaze cutting to the side. "Crowley," he repeated more slowly, enunciating the word. He felt the questioning look of the man standing on the other side of the table and looked up with a shrug. "Bad connection."

The whispering rose and fell like waves and the demon's expression flattened out. "Crowley," he said again, voice sharpening. "Your King."

Sam watched the expressions flicker over Crowley's face, following the demon's rapidly escalating and tightly repressed anger with ease.

"If you don't connect to Abaddon right away, I will be forced to–" the demon grated, then stopped, his eyes rolling.

"What?" Sam asked. "What happened?"

"I've been placed on hold," Crowley told him reluctantly.

Sam ducked his head to hid the involuntary smile and wished his brother was here. It was exactly the sort of situation Dean would've loved to see the demon in.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Rexford, Idaho<strong>_

The street was quiet and dark, the number lit up under the porch light, and Dean pulled into the kerb, turning off the engine and pulling on the brake.

"Okay."

Cas looked up at the house, then back to the hunter beside him. "Thanks, Dean."

Watching him twist in the seat to open the door, Dean looked at his clothes and let out a gusty exhale in time with the squeak.

"Cas."

The angel turned back to look at him.

"Wait."

Cas pulled the door shut again, his expression puzzled.

"I can't let you do this," Dean said, shaking his head as he looked at the blue vest. It shrieked school crossing guard, he thought uncharitably.

"What?"

"You gonna wear that?" he asked. The angel looked down at the vest. "On a date?"

"This is all I have, Dean," Cas said, looking back at him.

"You had a credit card, and cash," Dean said, frowning at him. "Enough to get you a decent change of clothes."

"I – I thought it was better to keep those for emergencies." Cas looked down at the floor.

Emergencies, Dean thought sourly. The whole of the angel's life was one long emergency.

"Yeah, well, this is a kind of an emergency," he told him dryly. It was too late to do anything about it now. "Okay, lose the vest."

"What do you –" Cas looked down at it again.

"Lose the vest, come on," Dean insisted. Last thing the guy needed was to look like a class-A dork on his first date. Something tapped at the back of his mind about the chick he'd seen at the fill-up and he frowned, losing the memory as Cas struggled out of the vest.

"That's a little better," he said encouragingly, looking him over again. "Alright, there we go," he added, taking the offending garment from the angel and tossing it into the back seat. "Alright."

Cas looked at him expectantly.

"And do the buttons," Dean said, looking at him critically and gesturing to his own shirt collar. "Unbutton the top ones."

Cas' chin tucked into his chest as he looked down. "Okay."

"That's far enough," Dean said, as Cas unfastened the third from the top, looking over him from hair to pants, nodding a little. "Um … yeah, good."

Looking back toward the house, Cas shifted uncomfortably in the seat. As much as he appreciated the advice, he wasn't sure now that he would know what to do when he got in there.

"Alright," Dean said, drawing the angel's attention back. "Listen to me, uh, always open the door for her, okay?"

Cas nodded uncertainly, his doubts multiplying at his friend's much more serious tone.

"Ask a lotta questions, they like that," Dean added, dragging his memories for the last normal date he'd been on. Had that been with Lisa? Was it that fucking long ago? He wasn't sure he could classify Lydia as a normal date – or a normal anything.

"And uh … oh, if she says she's happy to go Dutch? She's lying. Alright?"

_Door_. _Questions_. _Dutch_. Cas' head was reeling and he wasn't sure he could equate any of those things to what he'd thought the evening would be like. He hadn't dated his wife. She'd cared for him and then they'd been married. He hadn't dated April either and the memories still locked in the cells of Jimmy's twice-reassembled brain, of getting to know Amelia were more focussed on the time they'd spent in private than those they'd shared in public.

"Uh," he said, staring through the windshield. "Maybe I'm not ready for this."

Dean shook his head. "You are, everyone feels like that at first," he assured the angel. "It's – it's not that hard, just be yourself," he said, double-taking after a second's thought and shaking his head. "Well, not _yourself_-yourself, but you know, natural."

"I'm an angel, Dean."

"Not any more," he said, shrugging. "Now you're human."

"But I don't – I didn't do this with, uh, with … you know," Cas stumbled over the words.

"Okay, that's okay." Dean dragged in a breath. "Uh, look, most of it, just talking, just like with everyone else, okay? The rest, you can … uh, let your instincts take over."

"I'm not sure I have instincts to cover this."

"You do," Dean said, ducking his head slightly as an old, old memory flashed through his mind. "Trust me. It'll be fine."

Cas looked back at the house and Dean saw his pulse, beating fast against the thin skin at the side of the angel's neck. For a moment, he felt the same fillip of anticipation, a rush of promise, unfelt for a long time. A long, _long_ time. He pushed it away, reaching out and giving the angel a reassuring slap on the shoulder.

"Go get her, tiger."

Cas turned away, taking in a lungful of the cool night air as he pushed the door open again and got out. Dean was happy to see that his knees were still holding him up as he walked up the path.

_Normal_. Walking up the path to her house, for the first time, everything unknown except that trickle of anxiety mixed with hope, threading through the nervous system, pulse accelerating and a thousand uncertainties filling up his brain. He'd never really done it like this, he thought, not since he'd been a kid. In the intervening years, it'd been hitting on women who'd already seemed interested, in diners and bars, over drinks and in between games of pool, played for money where he hadn't let his concentration slip until the game was over and the mark's money was safely tucked into a pocket. The back seat of the car, motel rooms, more backrooms and storerooms and alley-ways than he could count or cared to. Bedrooms ranging from a mattress on the floor to Pepto-Bismol shades of pink, stuffed toys thrown aside to make enough room. Fold-out sofas and blankets over grass and … he shook his head. Cicero and Lisa had been what he thought of as going out. Getting dressed up, in a suit at least, eating out, seeing a movie, getting home and going upstairs to the bedroom they'd shared. After a while, they'd slacked off on the romance stuff, routine had settled in and he'd never been sure if that had been a relief or not, unable or unwilling to look too closely at the way he'd felt when he'd been there. He missed them. Missed the way the days had bled into one another and nothing unexpected had come up. He didn't miss the feeling that he'd been suffocating, slowing down, losing his edge and his purpose in life. That bit he'd tried to ignore.

He watched Cas climb the porch steps, turning and looking at something on the boards, kneeling down by one of the planters. When the angel straightened, he held a long-stemmed rose in one hand, putting it behind his back as he turned back for the door.

"Nice touch," Dean commented aloud, feeling an inordinate flush of pride at the angel's quick thinking. As if he'd heard, Cas turned around, waving an arm violently in the unmistakable 'get the fuck out of here' gesture every guy knew and had used at one time or another whenever an encounter with the opposite sex was looming.

Nodding in acknowledgement, Dean grinned to himself, turning back to the wheel and starting the car, his hands flicking on the headlights, taking off the brake, feet finding the pedals all on automatic pilot. The light-coloured truck that passed by and swerved into the kerb, started to reverse back toward him and that wiped every thought of his friend as he looked at the beige rear end, Ford in giant raised letters on the tail gate, and the bright white reversing lights half-blinding him through the windshield. Asshole was gonna park him in?

"What are you doing, jackass?"

He leaned out the window slightly, waving an arm where the driver could see the motion. "Hey!"

The brake lights came on, flooding the Impala's interior in red and flashed off again as the pickup's driver shifted into first and rolled ahead.

"Right," he muttered, turning the wheel hard and pulling out. He glanced at his watch. He'd have time to get to the police station and have a look over the case files on the other victims. Knowing that the sonofabitch was an angel might point him in a direction the cops hadn't found.

* * *

><p>Cas heard the throaty rumble of the Impala pulling out as he knocked on the door. When Nora opened it, he was relieved to find that the familiarity of her, even in clothing that was far more formal and far less concealing than he'd seen before, had eased at least some of the anxiety Dean's well-meaning but ill-timed advice had created.<p>

"Steve," she said warmly, one hand inserting an earring as she stepped back and opened the door more widely. "I'm so glad you could make it."

In the deep green-blue dress, made of some fabric that clung to the curves of her body, swirling out intriguingly where it ended above her knees, Cas thought she looked very attractive. He suddenly understood why Dean hadn't doubted his instincts. He looked around the room of the house absently as she closed the door behind him, enveloped in a cloud of sweet-smelling perfume when she overtook him and walked through the room to the open plan kitchen.

"I thought I was going to be late," she said, heels clicking over the bare polished boards, and Cas frowned, following slowly, his fingers still tight around the stem of the rose he held behind his back.

"Late for what?"

"My date," she said, crossing the room and bending to pick up a thin shawl from an armchair. "Bowling, would you believe it? Damned if I'm not dressing fancy, even for bowling," she added, smiling at herself and her hair swinging out as she flicked a quick glance back at him.

Standing in the middle of the main room, Cas looked at her blankly as what she said sank in slowly. Bowling? Date? Fancy?

"Haven't had an excuse to doll up since Tanya was born," she said, her voice holding a very faintly bitter edge. She picked up her purse and turned to him. Cas felt his eyes widen fractionally as he caught sight of the cot next to the window. She was speaking words he understood, he thought. He just couldn't understand what they meant.

"And there she is," Nora continued, oblivious to the expression on Cas' face. She walked to the cot and bent over it. "My little angel."

_A baby?_

"Now, she's already been fed, and she'll probably sleep the whole time and I'll only be gone a couple of hours," Nora told him briskly. "I just couldn't get my usual sitter, and I need somebody here, just in case she wakes up and starts crying."

_Need somebody here? _

There was a distant hint of apology in her voice, he realised belatedly, looking down at her as she walked closer to him.

"Which she won't," Nora assured him, a smile that somehow wasn't anywhere near as warm as her earlier ones stretching her mouth widely. "Wish me luck!" she added, veering past him to go to the door.

Cas pivoted around, all of it becoming more and more obvious to him as her heels clicked back across the room.

_Not a date_.

"Oh! And thank you! You really are the best," Nora called out cheerily as she opened the front door and swept out, pulling it closed behind her.

"Baby-sitting," he said to the empty room.

It was not an unfamiliar concept. He'd seen it on television. Someone had to stay with the baby. Usually it was a teenage girl. Once he'd seen a man dressed as a woman doing it, on some late-night movie. He thought he'd even seen this exact same scenario, in one of the shows that the networks kept rerunning at any hour of the day and night. A tall, dark-haired man and a pretty blonde woman and no date. Just … baby-sitting.

His hand dropped to his side and he put the rose on the counter, then redid the buttons on his shirt. Nora had never been interested in Steve, the great guy who was responsible and could be counted on, he thought, wondering if it was unhappiness he could feel in his chest or just disappointment. She hadn't been interested in anything but a safe person to leave her child with while she went on a real date with someone else.

_Live and learn_, Dean's voice said cheerfully in his mind and he winced. He would never be able to tell his friend about this. He didn't think Dean would ever stop laughing if he found out.

Behind him, Tanya hiccuped into the silence of the house, then her voice rose sharply in a wail.

* * *

><p>Working his way back across town, Dean started a little at the sound of the phone in his pocket. He pulled it out, pressing the cell against his ear.<p>

"Sheriff? I'm just on –"

"We got a wrinkle, Agent," the sheriff's voice cut him off. "Our first murder, the married couple? Full analysis came in from the lab. Turns out the spray that coated their living room only contained the wife's DNA."

In the car, Dean nodded. "Husband's still out there." He put his foot down as the light ahead of him changed to orange, the rear wheels chirping on the concrete. "He's the one that got religion, right?"

"That's right," the sheriff answered. "You got something on that?"

"Yeah, maybe," Dean said, the map of the town, gathered in his memory as he'd driven back and forth across it, showed him a faster way to the cop station. "I'll be there in five, I need to see the older files first."

"They'll be here," the sheriff confirmed, and Dean disconnected the call, hauling the wheel around as he hit the accelerator harder and the black car turned smoothly into the cross-street.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

Sam paced the length of the room, running a hand through his hair and pushing it back from his face without thought. He turned and looked at the demon.

"How long does it take to transfer a demonic phone call?!"

"Can it … Moose," Crowley growled at him.

The bowl had been whispering and bubbling to itself for almost twenty minutes, and Sam was feeling the pinch of anxiety with every passing second. He didn't think the demon was faking any of it, Crowley's temper was worsening as the time had ticked away as well, but he couldn't be sure of anything the demon did or said.

By the door, Kevin shook his head. "Crowley, you got your call."

Glancing at him, Sam nodded. "Yeah, it's time –"

"It's … _time_ when I bloody well _say_ it's time– hello … Abaddon?"

Blinking at the abrupt change from snarl to polite enquiry, Sam stopped by the edge of the table, Kevin freezing mid-way across the room as well.

In the bowl, the blood boiled, a deeper, stronger whisper rising from it.

"Yes, long time and all that," the demon said, chains clinking as he raised a hand in an unconscious and impolite gesture. "How're the numbers?"

Sam watched the demon's expressions as the whispering strengthened again. He frowned as he saw Crowley's eyes widen slightly, his face smooth into stillness.

"You're taking souls before their time," the demon murmured. "Voiding my contracts."

Glancing at Kevin, Sam saw the prophet's attention was firmly fixed to Crowley as well, trying to guess at the other side of the hellish conversation from the demon's face. Looking back at him, Sam had to suppress a desire to take a step back from the table. Crowley's face was getting redder, his lips tightly pressed together as he listened to the archdemon.

"You – ganky – putrescent – skanger!" Crowley burst out, the veins in the sides of his neck leaping into prominence. "May look like bean-counting to you, may lack a certain adolescent flair, but my way – _works_!" He shrieked the last word at the top of his lungs and Sam flicked another glance at Kevin.

"Do you really think you can control Hell with fear alone?" Crowley spat out furiously. "Without the support of those who are still loyal to me!?"

Kevin took a step closer as the demon listened, the rage fading from his face, his expression becoming at first thoughtful, then filled with disappointment.

"Your way …" he told the bowl quietly. "… will backfire. You. Will. Burn."

Sam felt a shiver run down his neck at the certainty in Crowley's voice. The blood bubbled again and Crowley reached out, pushing the bowl aside, his gaze fixed on nothing.

"Crowley?" he asked. The demon looked away.

"Bring me the transcriptions."

Sam straightened, looking at down at him cautiously. The demon's mouth twisted up to one side for a moment, then he looked up, meeting Sam's eyes.

"I _keep_ my agreements," he said, his voice low but vehement.

Glancing over his shoulder, Sam nodded to Kevin and the young man turned fast, striding out of the room, breaking into a run as he reached the hall. The transcriptions were downstairs, in the library, locked in the files.

"What happened?"

Crowley closed his eyes, his shoulders dropping.

Sam waited, but the demon said nothing else and the silence in the room thickened. He was relieved when he heard the slap of Kevin's sneakers on the concrete floor of the file-room beyond the doors.

The doors opened and Kevin came in, handing the handwritten notes to Sam. He put them on the table in front of the demon and Crowley opened his eyes, looking down at them.

"Obtain the ingredients," he murmured, gaze flicking up and down the page. "Heart, bow, grace … blah blah … mix and burn, and as the smoke rises from the ashes, those of spirit alone shall be cast down, and the gates will be closed … blah blah." He shifted the top page to the underneath, leaning forward a little as he continued to read. "Ever-lasting … damning to the sons of God. Blah … blah … oh."

Sam frowned and leaned over the table. "Oh … what?"

Crowley looked up at him. "It's irreversible."

"What?"

"The spell can't be undone," Crowley said, looking back at him. "The original ingredients are unique. More so than even stated here, I would imagine," he mused to himself as he read the rest of the page. "Lucifer thought he'd destroyed every nephilim on earth," he explained, looking back at Sam. "Guess he left one, but that was probably the last. The cupid's bow, you could probably get hold of another one. If you could find a cherub who was willing to give you one – they have to be freely offered. And the grace … the Grace of an angel who has betrayed his brothers, betrayed himself, betrayed those closest to him. We don't know too many seraphs that fit that profile, do we?"

He put the pages down and shook his head. "No, sorry, mates, this is the new world order, and … we're stuck with it."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Rexford, Idaho<strong>_

"Where'd the extra detail on these two come from?" Dean asked, flicking through the file on the table in front of him.

"Went and talked to her sister again," the sheriff said, hooking his thumbs in his belt as he watched Dean skimming through. "A bit of time to process the guilt and she remembered more about the relationship," he continued. "Husband was pretty relaxed when they got married but he got religion a couple of years later. And it all went to hell when he started watching some tv minister, name of Buddy Boyle. The wife was not a believer, and well, apparently he kept at her, sister said he was dead set on getting to her to let the angels in."

"Buddy Boyle, yeah," Dean muttered, fingers walking through the stack of photographs at the back of the file. "That explains it alright."

"How so?"

Dean glanced sideways at him and shook his head. "Had a few nuts from the ministry, in the last few weeks. Got a detail on him now," he lied quickly, looking back at the file in front of him. He froze as the photo slid out from under the others, a man and a woman, both ordinary-looking, standing in front of a beige and white Ford pickup. In his memory, the rear tail-gate of a beige and white Ford pickup backed up toward him.

"This his ride?"

"Yep, no signs of it –" the sheriff started to say and Dean cut him off.

"Cas."

He dropped the photo and swung around, lengthening his stride as he walked out of the office, his heart thumping uncomfortably against his ribs. Sonofabitch had been there as he'd left.

* * *

><p>Cas held the squalling baby close in his arms, walking slowly down the hall with his phone jammed under his ear and against his shoulder. The heat he could feel under the baby's thin skin had worsened in the last hour, her small rounded cheeks were flushed and a brightening red, and even pressed against him, he could feel the warmth increasing, through her clothing, and the light blanket he'd wrapped around her, hot along the length of his arms and down his chest.<p>

"Nora? She's really hot, please call me back as soon as you can. If I don't hear back, I am taking her to the hospital," he told the message bank on Nora's phone.

He couldn't think of anything else to do. Once he could've healed whatever the problem was with a touch. Now, he was powerless. Useless, he told himself savagely. Unable to even guess which of the medications that filled the medicine cabinet in the bathroom would be suitable to give to Tanya, which would reduce the fever that seemed to be burning in the child.

"Sssh," he said as the baby cried inconsolably against his shoulder. "It's alright, Tanya, I'm going to take care of you," he said, trying to make his voice softer, lighter. "Nothing's going to happen to you."

He stopped in the dining area, sitting against the edge of the table as she quietened for a moment. The life of the child he held was in his hands. Looking down at the soft, fine hair that covered her head, he couldn't imagine a more important responsibility than that, and his grip tightened slightly as the memories of the other lives he'd held came back, not singly or in groups but en masse, a flood of faces and broken, twisted bodies, of blood-soaked ground and torn-apart wings.

Ducking his head beside the infant's he felt tears slip from beneath his closed lids, the muscles of his vessel's body hardening as they contracted, the effort of holding back his anguish shaking through him, ripping through the framework he'd tried to hold it back with, the platitudes of learning to be a human, the reassurances he'd told himself about having time to atone.

He floated, anchored only by the infant in his arms, in a sea of glass-edged excruciating torment, the screams and bubbling death cries drowning out his harsh sobs, the wracking agony of everything he'd done filling and overflowing him until he couldn't hear or see or feel anything but the pain.

And for the first time, as he reached the centre of that vortex, he remembered his Father's voice, quietly speaking to him when his frequency had been stripped and shredded and flung throughout the stars.

"_My sons, you have no souls_," the Voice had said as he'd spun aimlessly. "_Obedience is not a rule of enslavement, Castiel, but a narrow road to keep you from falling into confusion, a guide to the hearts and minds that have no other guide to follow_."

He'd felt himself drawn back together, slowly at first, electron and neutron circling each other warily, then faster and faster until his consciousness had been stretched and pummelled and he'd felt himself _!SNAP!_ back together. The cold, grey field had been empty and silent, but for the man kneeling beside a shallow hollow, head bowed and blood dripping from his face to the ground.

_Help me, Father_, he cried out, _I am dying!_

Not a voice nor even a feeling, but something answered from beyond the borders of the despair, something gentle and quiet, the taste of cool water on a hot day, the smell of the sea after a storm, the feel of soft rain in the evening.

_Knowing you could err, yet you chose again and again to follow the same path, Castiel. This time your choice will affect more than Earth, more than Heaven, there is need of you and you must be ready when it is asked of you._

The terrible pain receded a little, and he could hear and see and feel again, his fingers curling around the soft, downy head of the baby. Through them he felt heat and he staggered to his feet, adjusting the blanket that was wrapped around her.

"Okay, Tanya," he told her softly, his own devastation slipping back, into the recesses of his mind, pushed back by his rising fear for the infant he was holding. "We're taking a little walk."

Striding to the door, Cas opened it, and stared into the face of the angel standing on the other side.

"Hello, Castiel," Ephraim said, smiling at him.

Cas backed away, watching the angel follow him inside. He needed Dean, needed a way to get to his phone, warn the hunter. He could protect Tanya, he thought, but not for long.

"Squalid little dump," the Rit Zien said conversationally, looking around as Cas set the baby back in the cot. "No wonder she cries."

"It's a fever, Ephraim," Cas said, turning away from the cot and walking to the angel. "It will pass."

"You remember my name," Ephraim said, his voice rising a little with surprise. "I was of no account, when we met. But you, you had defied everything, had disobeyed and followed your own path."

"Those decisions were not wise," Cas said, looking at him. "They were not the actions of someone to admire."

The Rit Zien bowed his head. "I find Earth to be a place I cannot understand."

"There is a lot about humanity that is difficult to understand immediately," Cas told him gently. "The spark they were given … it powers them to the greatest heights, and the deepest depths – if you could stop, reflect –"

"Stop?" Ephraim said, his face contorting in astonishment. "Reflect? On the surging oceans of pain I feel here all the time? I will not stop until I have washed the planet clean of all suffering."

Cas dropped his gaze. "Ephraim, that is not possible. Their emotions, their feelings, are what govern their choices, their lives, in most cases and now more than ever before –"

Behind him, Tanya cried out again, and he moved himself between the baby and the angel without thinking about it.

"Allow me," the angel said, looking past him to the cot.

Stepping into his path, Cas swallowed against the certainty of his death. There was no time left. Was this the need that was asked of him?

"Don't touch her," he told the angel.

Ephraim stopped, smiling up at him. "You think I came for her? No, Castiel," he corrected gently. "I came for you."

Cas watched him turn away, walking back from the dimly lit room into the brighter kitchen. He looked around as Tanya's cries settled to whimpers then silence, his gaze following the angel as he tried to think of how to protect the baby and himself. On the counter, the rose lay and he remembered the sharp prick of the thorn, when he'd gone to pick it.

"I had no idea there would be so much pain and despair," Ephraim said. "I hear them, all the time, so many voices, begging and crying out for relief." He turned to look at Cas, his eyes empty. "For peace."

"How'd you find me?" Cas asked. He walked away from the cot, moving along the counter until he stood in front of the rose.

"Because you're warded?" The angel smiled pityingly. "Not against me, Castiel. Not against what I hear and feel. I followed you the same way as I find all of those who need my services. I followed the depth of your pain."

He took a step toward Cas and Cas backed away, holding the stem in one hand, his face rigidly expressionless as he dragged the thorns through his skin with the other. On the other side of the room, the glass-paned doors to Nora's bedroom were closed.

"You have no idea how bright that trail is," Ephraim said. "I was nearly drowned in it when I came here, a few minutes ago, I thought I would succumb to those depths, as you did."

"Do you really think you're doing Heaven's work down here?" Cas asked, turning to face him and backing toward the doors.

"I know I am!"

"You're wrong," Cas said, feeling his heel bump against the door. "Earth is not easy place to live, humanity has struggled with its problems for millennium, struggled with the gift our Father made to them, the choices they face every day. But they are doing the best they can, and they feel joy as readily as despair, Ephraim, they feel uplifted by hope and warmed by their love for each other. They embrace their suffering."

"And you, Castiel? Is that what you think you're doing? The best you can? Embracing your agony?" He stepped closer and Cas squeezed his hand closed, feeling the thick liquid spilling from his palm to coat his fingertips. "I felt your anguish. I lived within it. You wanted to be free."

"Like every human, I am subject to an ebb and flow, Ephraim," Cas admitted readily, watching his face as he came nearer. "I might sink into despair, but I rise too."

"Is that what you've been telling yourself?" the angel's voice held derision. "That you are like them? That you are human? You are not. You are riddled with your torment, but with no soul to ease it."

He stopped for a moment, eyes narrowing as they looked into Cas'. "I used to admire you. It is true that you failed more than you succeeded, but at least you played big."

Staring back at him, Cas closed the circle on the glass behind him, hurrying a little as he tried to finish the sigil. He saw Ephraim's gaze twitch from his face to his shoulder, and the angel lunged forward, hand gripping his wrist and twisting it up as he pulled him aside. Cas gasped as the bones of his thumb joint and wrist cracked and broke beneath the angel's pressure.

Ephraim swung him around, and he felt his vision greying at the edges as pain from the broken bones and torn ligaments blossomed throughout his forearm and shot up to his shoulder, all possibility of resistance gone as the angel's greater strength forced him to his knees in the centre of the room.

"Now, what are you doing?" Ephraim grated at him, tightening his grip further. "Burying yourself and trying to be human right when your family needs you the most?"

"I did not know what Metatron planned!" Cas cried out. "I was wrong, I was stupid and foolish and blinded by my own hubris, Ephraim! But I never wanted this –"

"They've turned against each other, Castiel," Ephraim said, staring into his eyes. "Our brothers and sisters gather in armies – against each other! Their pain is excruciating."

"Ephraim, you have to listen to me," Cas said, dragging a deep breath into his lungs, trying to clear his vision as the Rit Zien's words sank into him. There'd always been factions in Heaven. They'd gotten worse when the archangels had gone. "Listen to me. We can stop this, we can help them to unite again –"

"Sssh-ssh," the angel said, his expression smoothing out to neutrality, overlaid by a false compassion, again. "It will be over soon. I will take your pain away."

* * *

><p>Dean felt the wheel jump in his hands as the rear slid out on the slick concrete, his gaze fixed on the road ahead, hands and feet catching the car before the slide could become a skid. The tyres gripped and he put his foot down, the revs climbing as the engine roared through the quiet neighbourhood.<p>

Not too close, he told himself, going over the little he knew about what he was going to be facing. _An angel, always fun, and one powerful enough to disintegrate him with a single touch_. He took his foot off the pedal and the car slowed, the engine rumbled quietly as he came in at the end of Nora's street. _Just didn't get any better than this_.

Parking a block down, he took the angel sword from the trunk and ran along the sidewalk, veering at the next-door-neighbour's house and following their fenceline down to the back yard. Through the curtainless window at the side of the house, he could see Cas, kneeling on the floor in front of the man who'd been possessed, both locked in some kind of intense conversation. He couldn't see Nora and he wondered remotely if she was already dead. In front of the window, he registered the cot, the meaning sinking in a moment later.

So. Sneaky in. He didn't know how much time Cas had before the angel did his trick but it wasn't going to help anyone to barrel in there full throttle. One on one never worked with the dicks, powered up by Heaven or not.

The back door yielded to his picks in record time and he slipped in, leaving it ajar. He could hear their voices, down the hall, Cas' gravelly intonations distinct in the silent house.

Nora's bedroom had a door to the hall as well as the double-doors that led into the living area, and he stood outside of it, listening to the angel as he debated the two approaches.

"I want to live," Cas said.

"But as what?" the angel asked quietly. "As an angel? Or a man?"

Dean shot through the doorway behind the angel, lunging and twisting, feeling the angel sword's tip drive into its side, tearing through the cloth and hitting bone. White light flooded into his eyes and he screwed them shut, twisting away, knowing the strike hadn't been fatal. Failed again. Hands gripped his shoulders and he felt himself lifted and flung across the room, the sword still miraculously in his hand.

He hit the frame behind the plasterboard lining with the back of his head, falling to the floor as darkness closed around him, fighting it off when he heard the angel's voice, harsher now, louder. Sonofabitch was holding it together over something, he thought incoherently, his eyes opening a slit and seeing light spilling out from between the angel's fingers as he attempted to heal himself.

"You want to live?" Ephraim demanded of Castiel, eyes narrowing as he tried to counter the pain in his side. "You can't see what I see. You haven't seen what I've seen!"

"What?" Cas asked, keeping his gaze fixed to Ephraim as his peripheral registered Dean's uncoordinated movement in the corner of the room.

"There is no hope here," the angel ground out between his teeth. "You choose to be human – you're choosing death. We will destroy all of them, one by one, and the scribe's story will be all that's left."

Cas dropped his gaze to the floor. "What story?"

"Glorious battle, Castiel," Ephraim said softly. "Against the rise of the Accursed plane and the angels who fell with evil in their hearts and minds. A war to end all wars and a new dawn with a new Father who will protect and love us all."

Cas felt a deep shiver run up his spine. He looked up at the Rit Zien disbelievingly.

Ephraim lifted his hand, closing his eyes and on the other side of the room, Dean gripped the sword and shoved it across the floor, the faint screak of the metal over the timber boards hidden by the angel's soft muttering, the hilt sliding into Cas' hand.

Castiel straightened as he raised the tip, driving the sword deep into the angel's body, under the ribs, angled upward through a lung to pierce the heart. Around the sword's hilt, light burst out, flaring to an impossible searing brightness as it poured from Ephraim's mouth and eyes and nose, wiping the shadows from the room. Cas stared into the light, holding the sword in place as a song resonated through his vessel's bones.

From the floor, Dean watched the light die out of the angel's vessel, his head giving a massive throb and stars sparkling along the edges of his vision as the dimness of ordinary electric lighting returned. Another one down, he thought, and he slid into the gathering black with a feeling of relief.

* * *

><p>Looking up at the lit house, Dean leaned on the roof of the Impala, wincing a little as the penetrating cold of the bag he was holding against his head froze his fingers. He could hardly hear his little brother on the other end of the line.<p>

"Well, there's no way," he said, shifting the bag higher. "Crowley's lying."

"No, Dean. Not this time," Sam said, sighing his own frustration. "Look, Metatron built this spell, or found it, or revised it to withstand any attempt to reverse it."

"What about the tablet, the rest of the tablet –"

"There is no putting the angels back in Heaven. It's done," Sam said, his voice filled with a finality that set off every alarm he had. It wasn't possible that there wasn't some way of fixing this, Dean thought. But his certainty in that was diminishing.

* * *

><p>Cas looked around the living room carefully. The damage had been cleaned up. Dean had responded to cold water and was out in the car, holding a bag of frozen vegetables from Nora's freezer against the back of his head. He'd also shown him the anti-inflammatory liquid medication in Nora's bathroom cabinet and Tanya was sleeping peacefully, the fever gone.<p>

He'd carried Ephraim's vessel to his car, leaving the body in the front seat. Dean had driven the car down the street four blocks, far enough away from Nora's house that he hoped neither she nor 'Steve' would be called in for questioning when they found the truck and the body it contained. A body with a strange stab wound and burned out eyes and a puddle where the soft tissues had been.

It required an inordinate amount of effort, to clean up human messes, he thought, tossing the mangled rose stem into the trash can. And the backlash, emotionally, was harder to fix.

He turned around as the key turned in the door and Nora let herself in, her eyes darting from him to the cot as she dropped her bag on the floor. "Is she alright?"

"Yes, she's fine," Cas reassured her, glancing back toward the cot. "She's sleeping, a friend gave me a tip on what to give her to bring the fever down."

Hurrying past him, Nora slowed as she approached the baby, peering in over the edge, her shoulders dropping as she saw for herself Tanya's quiet breathing and peaceful face.

She turned around and walked back to Cas as he shifted from foot to foot.

"I'm sorry I overreacted," he said.

Shaking her head, she looked at him. "Don't be, mother's first rule, overreact first, just in case." She ducked her head, looking down at the floor. "The date was a bust anyway."

She smiled self-deprecatingly at him, and Cas realised she was nervous about something.

"I'm sorry," she said a second later, looking back at him. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you what I wanted, I'm sorry you had to worry so much about her," she continued, waving a hand behind her at the cot. "I'm sorry that I didn't see – that I should have seen just how good a man you are, Steve."

He stared at her. "Uh …"

"That part of you, that overreacted and – cared so much, that's the part that's special," she said, and for the first time he saw her without the deceptive smile, the half-flirtatious mask that she'd worn since he'd met her. He saw her, standing alone and vulnerably unprotected, her face drawn with a reluctant understanding of what she'd done. "I hope you'll give me another chance."

Looking away, Cas didn't know what to say to that. "I – yes, of course," he hedged uncomfortably. "Uh … back to the job tomorrow, right?"

She nodded. "Right."

"I'd better go," he said, turning for the door. "I'll see you tomorrow."

* * *

><p>"You gonna tell Cas?" Sam asked quietly into the growing silence.<p>

Dean's face screwed up and he looked up through the canopy of leaves above him, to the pinprick stars that lit the sky past them. "How? He – he's lost everything but his hope, Sam, I'm supposed to take that too?"

"Is he alright?" Sam said. "I mean, where he is?"

"I don't know," Dean admitted. "I think so."

"When are you heading back?"

"Tonight." He turned as he heard the squeak of the front gate. "I gotta go, I'll see you in the morning."

The angel walked across the road, and he threw the warming pack of peas into the back seat, looking at him over the roof of the car.

"Where to, Cas?"

"I have a room," Cas said tiredly. He reached for the door and opened it, getting into the car.

Dean leaned on the roof for a moment. He'd figured the situation when he'd come to, seeing the baby and no sign of Nora. It'd been then too that his doubt about the blonde had returned in full force and he'd had to make an effort not to blurt it out to the angel there and then. Cas had told him about getting there, his dawning realisation of what the 'date' was. Looking at the angel's woebegone face, he'd never felt less like laughing.

Opening the door, he got in and started the engine, glancing at Cas as he pulled out.

"I'm sorry, man."

Cas turned to look at him. "It's fine, another lesson to be learned, right?"

_Pretty sucky one_, Dean thought to himself but he nodded anyway. "She's the one who lost out, not you."

"It doesn't matter." Cas turned to look out the window. "Ephraim said that wanting to be human was giving up."

"Do you think that?" he asked, a little surprised. He'd thought the angel was kind of embracing the life, even with its heartaches and daily grind.

"I don't know," Cas said doubtfully. "The angels, they're lost, Dean, should I really be ignoring that, sitting on the sidelines and watching their suffering without trying to find a way back? Ephraim said they were gathering, preparing for war on this plane."

The subject had come up a lot quicker than he'd expected. "War against who?"

"Each other," Cas said, his voice weary. "And Hell."

Dean shook his head. "Me and Sam'll, we'll take care of the angels," he said, hoping it wasn't another lie in the endless parade. "You're human now. It's not your problem anymore."

He could feel the angel's gaze on him, and he kept his on the road.

After a moment, Cas gestured to the street ahead of them. "It's here, on the right."

"Your right?" Dean joked, hoping it would help.

"Isn't my right also your right now?"

The exhale gusted out of him and he made the right without trying to comment on anything else. The small motel advertised long-term rentals and he pulled into the slot in front of the room Cas indicated.

"Thank you for the ride," Cas said, making no move to open the door. "And for saving my life. And Tanya's."

Staring at him, Dean wondered what the hell was going through the angel's head.

"Listen, Cas, back at the bunker, I – uh, I'm sorry I told you to go," Dean said. "I know it's been hard on you, on your own."

The angel's head dipped a little, his gaze fixed to the front.

"You're adapting," Dean continued, looking at him, hoping he was hearing it. "I'm proud of you."

"Thank you, Dean." Cas finally turned to look back at him, his expression showing a hint of gratitude. "I have coffee, inside?"

"It's a fourteen hour drive back to Kansas," Dean said, shaking his head. "I'll see you around, alright?"

"Alright."

He watched the angel open the door, the Impala's distinctive creak covering his sigh. Closing it behind him, Cas hesitated as he stepped onto the walk in front of the rooms, then kept going and Dean started the engine. He saw the angel open the door and the lights come on inside as he turned around to reverse back out, the door already shut when he looked to the front again.

* * *

><p><em><strong>US-191 S, Wyoming<strong>_

The painkillers had taken the edge off the pounding at the back of his head, and the familiar comfort of an empty two-lane highway had soothed it down further. Zeppelin played softly in the tape deck, filling the interior of the car with their music, loud enough to hear but not distracting.

_You're human now. _

He shook his head slightly. It wasn't possible, not for the angel. He was what he was, not human, not angel, something in between.

_Go live a normal life._

He was being hunted by the angels who still had some power, drawn maybe from the living souls surrounding them on the over-populated planet. He wasn't sure about that. Something else to ask Zeke next time the angel popped out.

And … according to Crowley, it was a situation that wasn't going to change. That they were now well and truly stuck with. He scratched along the stubble on his jaw _meditatively_, wondering what Zeke had thought about that. The only solution he could see that was going to be of the slightest possible help was setting up the table to track the angels. And they were batting zero on that one.

A memory of Cas's face, his expression uncertain, came back to him, provoking an unconscious smile. For the brief few moments he'd been coaching Cas in the car outside of Nora's house, fuck, life had felt normal. A situation, a friend, something he could offer, although it hadn't helped Cas much … it'd felt … normal. How much would have to change, to reverse, for that to be a possibility again, he wondered? Everything, the answer came to him, and the smile vanished.

He'd recognised Cas' wish, had recognised it at first with amusement, then, he admitted slowly to himself, that it might even have been something he wanted as well. Cas had been looking for a connection, for someone to know him, to see him, to understand him, all the way through and from back to front. At the time, he hadn't really considered it, but the angel had wanted something that … that was impossible, he thought.

The headlights delineated the lane between the bright white lines and the tyres growled softly over the black asphalt, and Dean reached over and turned the volume of the stereo up, letting the music block out his thoughts, and wash away the emotions that had accompanied them.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

Rinsing out the bronze bowl in the sink of the utility room, Sam thought about what Crowley had said, and his brother's reaction to it.

It changed everything, he realised. Not just for humanity, although that was a big enough game-changer, but on a personal level, for Dean, it meant that Cas was going to be out there indefinitely, particularly if they couldn't find a way to track the angels.

Crowley was another matter. The demon's demeanour, when he'd pushed aside the bowl and asked for the transcriptions, had been subdued. He wasn't sure what Abaddon had told him of her plans, but his responses had been vehement, then … defeated? He wasn't sure.

He glanced back at the roll of syringes and scalpels, lying on the table, and started as he saw the missing one. Must have dropped it in the dungeon, he thought, stomach plummeting. Four of them had been empty, one held his blood, probably coagulating right now since it'd been out of the chiller for hours. Turning for the stairs, he took them two and three at a time and opened the door to the file-room, not bothering with the lights. Walking to the shelf doors, he stopped as he glimpsed the demon through the narrow slot between them.

Crowley had the missing syringe in his hand. Sam watched, brow creasing up as the demon pushed the needle into his arm, depressing the plunger and injecting the blood.

What the _hell_?

The demon's eyes rolled up, showing the whites as Crowley leaned back in the chair, his chest heaving, the syringe spilling from his fingers as he seemed to twitch and jerk against the bonds holding him.

There was only one reason to take the blood, his blood, Sam thought. But it wouldn't work, couldn't work entirely without the completing ritual, and no one could do that for Crowley, not without dying.

_So said Naomi, who'd learned it from Metatron. _More truth or lies?

Backing away, Sam moved soundlessly out of the file-room, turning back down the hall. Dean would be back in twelve hours, give or take, he thought uncomfortably. In the meantime, he needed Kevin back on the demon tablet, sleep or no sleep.


	13. Chapter 13 Bad Break

**Chapter 13 Bad Break**

* * *

><p><em><strong>1995. Fallsburg, New York.<strong>_

Dean checked again that Sam was asleep, hovering beside the bed and watching his brother's chest rising and falling slowly. The bar was out along the lake road, maybe a mile from the motel. He'd been watching the action the last two nights, and figured it would extend their cash to something better than pizza for the next couple of nights, or however long it took Dad to figure out the Hassidic curse on the Baum family and let them get out of this boring little town.

Backing out of the room, he closed the door behind him, and turned around. The motel was a flea-bag, cheap enough and roomy, but the carpet was showing thread along every thoroughfare and there was a pervasive and cumulatively unpleasant smell of some kind of chemical, not too noticeable in the cool night air, but almost toxic when the room heated in the middle of the day.

He walked to the table and picked up the two hundred in cash his father had left them for food, tucking the wad into his front jeans pocket. Grabbing his jacket from the hook beside the door, he checked he had the key and ran an eye along the salt lines again. He wasn't going to be gone that long, but years of experience had inculcated the habit till he no longer realised he did it.

_Protect your brother. _

His father's voice echoed in his mind, and his eyes closely briefly. Sam would be fine. He'd be back before two and they could have a steak, or one of those fancy salads his brother was developing a taste for, at the restaurant downtown tomorrow night. He knew Sammy was as sick of chicken soup as he was.

* * *

><p>It took fifteen minutes to walk along the road from the motel to the bar, an occasional streetlight spreading pools of illumination across the asphalt and grassy verge, the spaces in between filled with darkness. He passed by the full-grown trees that lined both sides of the roads, the large, fine homes behind them sometimes visible by their lights between the thick growth, without paying attention to any of it.<p>

The Honky-Tonk was as out of place in this town as he was, Dean thought, crossing the dirt and gravel parking lot. To one side of the lot, a half dozen cars were parked, all last year's models, gleaming under the flickering and ancient lightbulbs that hung askew from the building's narrow porch. But on the other side of the sagging frame and weatherboard building, older vehicles and a couple of bikes seemed more at home. It was the only bar that didn't include a toney restaurant in the area, catering to the beer and burgers crowd. The only bar in town that didn't have a dress code, in fact.

He pushed through the door, inhaling the familiar odours of beer, cigarette smoke and over-fried food deeply, and walked to the long, scarred timber bar, ordering a Coke and taking it to a small table to one side of the long, wide room. The bar took up the centre of the room, booths lining all the walls, tables and chairs arranged in between. On the left-hand side, three pool tables glowed a vivid green under their low-slung overhead lights and as usual, all three were occupied, one by a group from the town, sharply-dressed and in their teens for the most part – the drivers of the shiny cars out front, Dean thought, at least some of them. Another group of quieter, but similarly dressed older teens sat in one of the booths close to their table.

The other two tables were being played by the sort of people he was more used to seeing in a joint like this, a group of older men and women, obviously local, stained denim and faded chambray. At the furthest table, two young men were playing, fooling around really, both rolling around the table edges, shooting recklessly, seemingly unworried if the balls were actually sunk, or if they missed and the game continued on.

Sitting down, he glanced at the younger crowd and dismissed them, ignoring the older players as well. He focussed his attention on the two by the wall. He'd watched them before and impatience to get the show on the road drove him toward the table before he'd finished his soda.

"You guys feel like a real game?" he asked, sidling up to the table. The taller, a beanpole blond with acne scars pocking most of his face, in jeans and a threadbare Megadeth tee shirt, turned around and looked him up and down, eyes slightly unfocussed as he leaned on his cue stick.

"Sure, what we talking about?"

The other young man, maybe two or three years older and a lot heavier, came around the end of the table and stared at him pugnaciously, the beginnings of a beer gut jutting out over his waistband. "Minimum's twenty."

"Sounds good," Dean said, setting a twenty from his roll on the edge of the table and strolling to the rack. None of the sticks in the place were much to write home about, but there were a couple that were mostly straight. He'd looked them over the first evening he'd been here.

All three had kept their voices low, careful not to attract much attention. Turning back to the table, he gave the first break to the blond and watched as the white ball bounced from side to side, grazing one of the coloured balls but sinking nothing. Expressionless, Dean waited as he straightened up then walked around the table slowly. He didn't want to give the game away this early, and he fumbled the first shot, catching the smirks of the two men from the corner of his eye as he scowled at the table and moved aside.

He managed to make the last shot look like luck, sinking the black on an extreme angle, and shaking his head in disbelief. Playing the dark-haired guy next, he followed more or less the same tactic, keeping the enjoyment at the skill it needed to make the successful shots look like accidents carefully hidden.

There was a burst of laughter from the first table, and he looked up as his opponent sank the white for the third time, eyes nearly crossed with trying to keep it in focus. The group of teenagers were over-dressed for the place, slumming it, he thought, his attention caught by the beautiful dark-haired girl in the centre of the group as she turned her head and smiled at him.

Muttered cursing from the dark-haired man as he put his money on the table's edge pulled his concentration back to what he was doing and he shook his head in sympathy, taking three of the twenties and leaving the fourth on the table as he lifted a questioning brow at the blond.

* * *

><p>Forty minutes later, he bundled the six twenties he'd made into his pocket and went back to the bar to get another drink.<p>

"Hey."

Turning, he saw the dark-haired girl standing next to him, long, wavy hair falling over a mostly bare back, a lushly full mouth curled up on one side, and dark-brown eyes, subtly made-up and bright with interest, looking into his.

"Hey."

"I'm Rachel," she said, half-turning to reveal another girl standing behind her, taller, chestnut-brown hair with a deeper tint of auburn drawn back from her face and green eyes under delicately arched brows. "That's Robin."

"Dean."

He took the Coke as Rachel leaned over the bar to the bartender to give him their order, his gaze drifting over the full curves of Rachel appreciatively before he turned to Robin. In a dress that didn't seem to match the price range of her friend, she was looking the other way, hands clasped awkwardly together, swaying a little, as if the heels she had on were a first-time experiment.

"You from Fallsburg?" he asked, stepping out from the bar and closer to her.

She shook her head. "Hurleyville, it's just another mile along Whittaker Road," she said, looking at him for a moment, then away again. She seemed nervous about something, he thought.

Rachel turned, leaning on her elbow on the bar and he wondered what she wanted. The fabric of the dress she wore gleamed in the cheap light, as subtly expensive as the slim gold watch around her wrist, and the diamond tear-drop earrings in their gold settings. She wasn't right for this place, and as he followed her quick glance back to her friends at the pool table, four teens, ranging from sixteen to nineteen, he thought that they weren't either.

Instinct prickled along the back of his neck as he looked at them. Designer jeans, sports coats and silk shirts, and the Merc and Beamer sitting out in the parking lot belonging to them for sure. He looked back at the girl as she straightened up.

"Feel like a game with us?" she asked, her voice low as she slipped an arm through his, twisting her hip to push him slightly in the direction of the table. Looking down at her, his alarm bells went off but he ignored them as her lips parted slightly, showing a hint of pearl-white teeth between them. The look in her eyes was challenging and he couldn't have turned his back on that, even without the other distractions of warmth and perfume and the frank interest in the dark eyes.

"Sure," he said, forgetting that he'd been going to call it a night, that he had to get back to the room and make sure Sam was alright, that he'd made enough to last them comfortably until his father returned and hadn't attracted any attention doing it.

"Great," she purred, tucking herself closer to him. "Come on, Robin, they'll bring our order over."

The boys turned as they approached, setting their chalk down and smiling. Rachel inched closer to him as they stopped next to the table. "This is Dean."

"You want a game?" the oldest of them said, his gaze flicking to Rachel and back, the smile not quite reaching his eyes, which were as dark and secretive as the girl's. "I'm Ari, you've met my sister, Rachel, I see," he said, turning and waving a casual hand at the other three. "That's David, Ben and Gil."

Nodding at them, Dean felt Rachel slip away, moving to the table as the bartender deposited a tray of beers and glasses, setting them down and discreetly pocketing the couple of bills Ari had slipped him. He saw Robin walk around the table to stand beside the dark-haired girl. Side by side, he was struck more forcefully by the differences between them, town and country. Robin didn't look comfortable, and his neck prickled again.

* * *

><p>The first few games were friendly. He played David and Gil, and watched Ben play Ari. They were reasonably skilled, nothing special, and when Ari passed him a beer, he accepted it, not quite willing to admit that he was enjoying being in the company of kids his own age, doing something he liked to do, but not denying it either.<p>

"Well, I'm almost done," Gil said, yawning as he finished his beer. He looked at Dean, one brow raised. "You want another game? This time we could make it interesting?"

"What'd you have in mind?" Dean asked, not even questioning why these kids would be interested in playing for money. His thoughts were circling around finishing up the night with enough to stake him for the next town, enough to get a new Walkman, maybe, since his had begun to make whining noises. He missed the glance that passed between Gil and Ari as he let his gaze drift back to Rachel. She was sitting next to Robin at the small table, long legs crossed and the skirt of her dress had fallen back to show a smooth, tanned thigh.

"Last game, so we'll make it worthwhile," Ari said, pulling out a money clip and separating three hundred dollar bills. He set them on the table and Dean felt his stomach drop.

He was aware that he'd had a few beers, the bartender bringing them to the table regularly as they'd played, pocketing the extra tips each time. He was aware of the girls, sitting at the table and watching him. He was aware that the money on the table was pretty much all he had to last them for the next three or four days, until Dad got back and it was for food, for their food.

They're not all that great, he told himself, just casual players, rich kids with too much time. If he won … if he won, it'd be a helluva stake for the next few towns and maybe he'd get ahead enough to get a few things that he wanted, that Sammy wanted. He nodded and pulled out the roll of notes in his pocket. Three hundred left a twenty in his hand when he set it down.

"Rachel, I have to get home," Robin said, getting to her feet as she watched Gil set the break.

The dark-haired girl looked away dismissively. She waved a hand at the table. "We're not ready to go."

Dean glanced at Robin, seeing her indecisiveness. After a moment, she turned from the table and headed for the door. He wondered briefly why she'd come along. She seemed to be a million miles from these kids.

"Rachel, toss a coin," Gil called to her, and she extracted a silver dollar from her purse, waiting.

Gil looked at Dean. "Call it."

"Heads."

The coin flashed as it turned end over end in the air. The girl caught it and slapped it down on her forearm, looking at him with a mocking smile as she said, "Tails."

He didn't get a shot.

Gil broke and the balls went down, smooth and fast, one after the other. It didn't matter what the angle was, the boy leaned into his stick and lined them up and sank them, finessed along the cushion or smacked directly into the pocket and Dean watched him, his face expressionless, his chest aching.

The black went down, and Ari turned to him, sweeping the money from the table and folding it ostentatiously back into his clip.

"Good meeting you, Dean," he said, holding out his hand. Dean turned his head, seeing amusement in the boy's dark eyes.

He lifted his hand and felt the other boy's close around it hard. His own grip was stronger and the flash of surprise in Ari's eyes went a little way to making up for being marked, hooked and played. Not much. But a little.

"You're just passing through, right?" Ari said, his eyes shifting to his sister.

"That's right," Dean said tightly.

"Good." He stepped back, looking over his shoulder and nodded at the bartender. "Then we won't have to do this again."

"Count on that," Dean muttered, turning away and heading for the door.

He couldn't blame anyone but himself.

_Don't ever mistake arrogance for strength_. His father's voice drifted into his thoughts and he winced as he pushed the door open. He'd done exactly that, conned two rubes out of their money, then been conned himself with the same play. He stopped dead on the porch, eyes screwing shut as he realised how incredibly fucking stupid he'd been.

Distantly, he could hear a clicking noise and he shoved the recriminations aside, looking across the lot and seeing the local girl walking fast toward the road on the other side.

The decision came without thought, really. He looked at the Mercedes, smoke-grey and immaculate in the murky light and the smile that tugged at the side of his mouth held no humour at all.

He was in, breathing in the smell of conditioned leather in less than a minute, the engine turning over with a discreet and dignified purr as the wires connected and he twisted them together. The smile that came as he noticed the shift and three pedals under the wheel was more natural. Twisting around in the butter-soft bucket seat, he reversed out neatly and caught up with the girl two minutes later.

"Rachel?" She stopped and peered at the tinted windows and he pressed the button, lowering it.

"Nope." He looked at her, seeing the goosebumps raised along her bare arms, his gaze dropping to the high, strappy shoes she was teetering on. "You need a ride home?"

"That's Ari's car," Robin said, glancing back at the bar nervously. "He'll ki–"

"I think he'll be alright with it," Dean cut her off lightly, pressing another button and unlocking the passenger door. "C'mon, haven't got all night."

She hesitated a moment longer, then hurried around the nose of the car, the headlights turning her hair to red fire for a moment. The door opened and closed with a soft thunk, and she shivered as she stretched her legs out in the well.

"Where to?"

"Straight down that road back toward town, then the next right. It's about two miles," she told him.

He put it through the gears gently, feeling the clutch and accelerator and sped up as they made the right onto Whittaker, the car surging smoothly to eighty and the mile-long road gone in an eyeblink, it felt like.

"Take the next two rights," Robin said, gesturing ahead. "You're going to be in big trouble for this, you know."

He glanced sideways at her, smiling slightly.

"I guess I shouldn't be that worried about you, since you're obviously an experienced car thief, not to mention that you were hustling the two guys back there before you joined us," she added, keeping her eyes firmly fixed to the windshield.

He snorted. "Are you? That worried about me?"

"No." The response was delivered stiffly and he smiled again.

"This is me," she said as the headlights shone over a modest two storey house on the right. "Thank you very much for the ride, but I really think you should take this back."

He didn't turn the engine off, just sat there, one hand hooked lightly over the wheel, looking at her. Without the nervousness, she was a lot prettier, he realised.

"'Night." Turning away, she opened the door and got out, smoothing down the back of her dress automatically as she closed the door behind her. He watched her wobble fast up the concrete path to the front steps, teetering on the four-inch heels, and waited until the front door had opened and closed again before he pulled out, cruising along the quiet street and wondering where the best place to leave the damned car would be.

The engine died and he made sure that the car was in gear with the brake on, getting out and glancing up at the distinctive blue and white sign above him. Ari would have no troubles finding the car, he thought with a half-smile, walking away down the street and back toward the motel. Might have some issues with explaining it to his father.

* * *

><p>Despite the strung-out feel to the town, the distances weren't great and he eased the motel room door open at two-thirty, turning and closing it gently behind him, thumbing the lock and settling the chain in the slot.<p>

"Where've you been?!"

Sammy's voice, strident and coming out of the darkness of the room made him jump, his heart lodged somewhere in his throat as he spun around and stared at his little brother, ghostly in a white t-shirt and shorts against the blackness of the room behind him.

"Goddamn it, Sammy!" he managed to croak, leaning back on the door and closing his eyes. "What the hell you doing awake?"

"I got up for a drink and you weren't here," Sam said accusingly. "I've been waiting for you to get back!"

"Well, okay, yeah, I'm back," Dean said, straightening up as his pulse settled and breath came and went easily again. "So get into bed and go to sleep."

"Where were you?"

"Out."

"Out where?"

"Out doing stuff I had to do," Dean said, walking toward him and making shoo-ing gestures to get his brother back in the small room they shared when their father was there.

"What kind of stuff? Why didn't you tell me – or – or leave a note? Something?"

"What? You were scared to be on your own for a couple of hours?" Dean tried to inject a mocking tone into his voice.

"No, but –" Sam hesitated, stopping on the threshold of his room as he watched Dean pull off his jacket and shirt. "It's just us, Dean. What was I supposed to do if you didn't come back?"

"I didn't –" he started and stopped. "I just went for a walk, clear my head, Sammy. And if I hadn't come back, you know what you're supposed to do. Call Uncle Jim. Or Caleb."

"I was worried."

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Dean pulled off his boot and let it fall to the floor, exhaling slowly. "I know. I'm sorry."

As if that was all he'd been waiting for, Sam nodded and turned abruptly, the door between the two rooms closing softly. Dean pulled off the other boot and let it drop. Pulling off his socks absently, he stared at the wall.

In some pretty deep shit now, he thought, chewing on the edge of his lip as he tried to think of a way out of the mess he'd brought on them. There was a box of cereal, three packets of chicken soup and a can of tomatoes left in the small kitchenette on the other side of the room. Some milk. No bread. No butter, eggs or anything of the other things he'd been going to be buy with the money his father had left for them.

Standing up, he unbuttoned his jeans and let them fall, stepping out of the puddled denim and leaving them there. He yanked back the covers on the queen-sized bed and crawled under them, wondering what time the store would open in the morning and if it was better to hit when it was empty or full.

* * *

><p><em><strong>2013. Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

_For forgiveness, contrition is essential. _

_The voice wasn't coming from anywhere. Dean turned around in the darkness, eyes wide as he tried to see. _

_You are contrite._

_Fuck yeah, I'm contrite, he answered, his voice deepening with exasperation as he turned around other way. I'd give anything to change what happened!_

_And you have made atonement. _

_He stopped, hands tightening into fists. Had he? Was there any way to have paid for everything? Was there anything he could ever do that would make up, even in a small way, for what he'd done and what he'd felt. He felt his shoulders drop slightly under the load._

_You have made atonement._

_I don't –_

Still darkness but no longer total. The soft glow of the clock, lit numerals proclaiming three twenty-five with a vague sense of accusation, outlined the overhead pendant light and he was in his bed, flat on his back, pulse slowing as consciousness returned.

Dean rolled over onto an elbow, pushing himself upright, eyes squeezing shut as he tried to recapture the fragments of the dream, the sense that still lingered that the voice and what it'd said had been important, something he should remember. He recalled darkness. He recalled feeling that he'd been missing something, not getting what he'd been supposed to know …

Normally, he didn't dream in a linear line. Nightmares, even the occasional dream that wasn't filled with his worst memories, came in chunks, jittered around and changed location and shocked the crap out of him with sudden movement, violent thrusts from events, sounds, sensation.

Normally, he thought, rubbing both hands over his face wearily, his dreams made him want to reach into his skull and rip the fucking brain cells holding his memories out physically. These weren't normal.

He rotated his shoulder, feeling the stretch of tendon, the pull of muscle around the joint. It felt good. Mended.

Pushing the covers back, he got up, ignoring the jeans puddled on the floor and leaning over to switch on the lamp at the small desk. The light was diffused by the old-fashioned glass shade, and it threw a circle of warmth around him, chasing away the last tendrils of the underlying discomfort, his unease at feeling he should've known what to do, what it meant.

Dropping into the chair in front of his laptop, he opened it, the corner of his bottom lip caught unconsciously between his teeth as what Sam had told him about Crowley came back.

_Cure a demon._

The third trial had been clear and Sam had said that Crowley had been repentant, not absolved, but so close to that final forgiveness that his brother still couldn't believe that full reversion to his demonic state was possible. There were only two reasons he could think of for Crowley to want to continue the process, for his soul to be washed clean of what it'd been turned into in Hell. Neither made a lot of sense.

Returning to a human soul, absolved and cleansed in forgiveness, would render the bonds holding him useless. At least the psychic ones, he amended, thinking of the heavy iron chains and shackles.

Another thought snatched at his attention and he frowned, staring at the lit screen in front of him without seeing it. Would redemption change the demon's core personality? Crowley was an ambitious sonofabitch, even when he'd been human. They hadn't really considered if he'd be a good person once cured, had they?

The one-sided conversation the demon'd had with Abaddon was the other reason. He'd gotten slightly differing versions from Sam and Kevin, but both had been convinced that Crowley had thought that Abaddon was doing something that was going to make the angels falling look like a Sunday school picnic. Both had been clear on the fact that the demon had been … not so much defeated, when he'd kept his word and translated the notes from the tablet, but disappointed. In what, exactly, neither had been able to give him a very clear picture.

He leaned back in the chair, propping his feet against the side of the desk and closed his eyes. Abaddon wanted Hell, lock, stock and barrel. She wanted Crowley dead and a free rein – or reign – over the underworld. Sam had said that Crowley had implied that she was taking souls before their time, reneging on deals made and contracts signed to add to the power sink Hell already contained. He rubbed his fingertips over his temple and tried to make that fit into the unseen but clearly felt pattern that floated just beyond his conscious grasp.

A war on earth? The players were there, mostly, he thought. Factionalised and disorganised now, but if Abaddon wanted to bring it, he thought the angels, most of them, might get it together.

The shiver started somewhere low on his spine and rippled up through him. Just what they needed.

* * *

><p>The printer bins were about half-full when he came through from the kitchen, a coffee in one hand. Between them, Charlie and Kevin had refined Sam's search bots, and most of what was returned was either angel or demon activity, the events specifically targeted on matching phenomena. Blight. Electromagnetic fluctuations out of the norm. Weather anomalies. Blah blah blah.<p>

"Morning," Sam said, looking up at him from the situation table, a dozen files open and spread around him.

"Yeah."

"Did you sleep?"

He ducked his head slightly, hiding the automatic, humourless grin behind the cup he held.

"Like a baby," he told Sam blithely, reaching into the bin and pulling out a handful of pages.

Behind him, he heard the soft snort.

"Anything from Kevin on the demon tablet?" he asked as he turned back to the table, dumping the printouts at the end and starting to skim through them.

"Nothing so far," Sam said, with a shrug. "What do you want to do about –"

"Pack a bag," Dean cut him off sharply, finishing his coffee in a single swallow as he stared at the printout in his hand. "We're leaving – now."

"What?!" Sam stared at him. "Where?"

"New York." He put the cup down and turned away, heading for the library. "C'mon, Sam, shake it."

"Wait a minute –" Sam got to his feet as he saw Dean lengthen his stride and disappear from the library. He'd left the printout on the table and Sam picked it up, brow furrowing as he read the scant details of the news report. Man killed in freak tractor accident. Hurleyville, New York. Folding up the sheet, he hurried across the room and through the library. Dean'd looked like he'd seen a ghost, he thought, striding down the hall toward the stairs.

* * *

><p><em><strong>I-80 E, Nebraska<strong>_

They'd hit the interstate ten minutes ago, and Sam turned to look at his brother's profile, hard and expressionless, his attention on the road.

"Alright, we're on the way, and we got about twenty hours on the road, so you gonna tell me what this is about?" he asked, looking back at the printout he'd brought.

"Jack Longman, employee of the 'Sonny's Home for Boys', a rehabilitation centre in Hurleyville, NY, was killed in a freak accident with a tractor in the barn at the boys home –" Sam stopped reading, glancing back at his brother. "So, what's the rush on this?"

For a moment, Dean stared through the windshield without answering and Sam wondered if that was the way it was going to be.

"It's an old debt," Dean said finally, flicking a fast look at him. "Something I just owe this guy."

"Which guy?"

"Uh, Sonny – Colton."

"The guy who runs the boys' home?" Sam asked, not sure if he was getting the whole picture here. "How?"

"Sam, it's a long story."

"It's a long drive," Sam countered immediately, stretching his legs out and finding a comfortable position between the door and the back of the seat. "When the hell you meet this guy?"

"'95."

"'95," Sam repeated slowly. "'95 … when we were waiting for Dad on that curse case?"

"Yeah."

"You disappeared … Jim came and got me."

"Yeah."

Sam looked through the windshield. He remembered the spring of that year vividly. Remembered coming back to the bungalow room from school, and Dean not being there. Remembered waiting for a couple of hours, getting more and more worried and finally calling Jim. Jim had seemed to know what'd happened, but he still had to get through the night and most of the next day on his own, his worries for his brother getting worse and worse until Jim had pulled in and taken him back to Blue Earth.

"Jim said …" he started and stopped, his brow wrinkling up as he tried to pull back the details. Mostly he remembered being scared. "Jim said you had to go help Dad, that you got sick and were in a hospital down south."

"Uh, yeah," Dean agreed cautiously. "Didn't happen quite that way."

"What _did_ happen?"

He heard the long exhale from the driver's seat and felt himself tense a little. He'd never bought that story, not once, even when Dean'd gotten back and confirmed it himself.

"I lost the food money Dad left for us in a pool game," Dean admitted reluctantly, and Sam saw the fleeting glance he gave him from the corner of his eye. "Tried to make up for it at the local store and got busted."

"Arrested?"

His brother nodded. "Charged, in the county lockup."

"For stealing food?" Sam frowned at the thought.

"You don't remember that town, huh?" Dean asked him, his lip curling up derisively. "Got caught on CCTV, first one installed there. Owner was pretty gung-ho on the whole deal."

"And?"

"And the arraignment wasn't for another eight weeks, and I was a minor so they shunted me off to a boys home in Hurleyville."

Didn't that leave out a lot of pertinent detail, Sam thought uneasily. "They couldn't get hold of Dad?"

He saw his brother's cheek lift as he smiled. "Yeah, they got Dad."

"Then why'd –" he stopped mid-sentence, already knowing the answer to that. "Oh."

Dean flicked another glance at him. "He was right."

"Was he?" Sam asked, his tone flat.

"I lost three hundred, Sam," Dean said quietly. "The two that Dad left for us, and a hundred I'd won earlier using it as a stake. It was –"

"You were sixteen. It was a mistake, Dean."

He turned to look at him when his brother laughed. "Yeah, it was," Dean agreed readily. "One that I didn't make again."

Dragging in a deep breath, Sam looked out the passenger window. "So … you spent two months in a – a – reform home?"

"Yep. Charges got dropped for some reason," he said lightly. "Dad came and got me."

Sam remembered that night too. The low rumble of the car stopping out front of Jim's house, and Dean getting out, not looking sick at all, looking tanned and fit and healthy, head bowed as he'd taken his duffle from the trunk and walked into the house. He remembered seeing a shadow in his brother's eyes, for a long time after that, some memory or feeling that Dean hadn't seemed able to shake off. The tension in the priest's house had lasted until their father had taken off again.

"You never asked me about it," Dean said, breaking the recollection, and Sam shrugged.

"I was scared to," he said honestly. "Jim'd made kind of a deal of it, and Dad didn't say anything, and you were – you were different when you got back. I was afraid of knowing what'd done that."

Nodding, Dean said, "It wasn't a big deal, the home, I mean. It was alright."

"Alright?"

"You'll see," Dean said.

* * *

><p><em><strong>1995. Hurleyville, New York<strong>_

He got out of the cop car, handcuffs clinking and looked around curiously. The house in front of them was a frame and board two storey, dormer windows in the roof suggesting bedrooms there as well. It was neatly painted, shaded by old trees that were just getting their first new leaves of the year. To one side of the drive, several outbuildings sat close together, barns and garages and workshops, he thought. On the other side of the house, a fenced garden was backed by long fields, turned earth misted with pale green, some already growing pasture. The land sloped gently down to a long line of woods.

"Inside," the cop said to him and he walked – strolled – casually up to the porch steps, ignoring the feeling of his pulse hammering at the base of his throat, forcing his features to remain expressionless.

The deputy reached past him to knock on the door, and a moment later it was opened. The man standing there wasn't tall, no more than an inch or so over his own five-eleven, but he recognised the wary stance, noted the lean muscle under the thin undershirt and when he looked into his face, he saw the same awareness that he knew was in his own eyes. Sonny Colton had seen a lot, he thought, and was used to looking for problems before they became obvious. Brown hair flopped over his forehead, a handle-bar moustache framed his mouth and blue eyes looked him over.

"Got another one for you, Sonny."

Sonny stepped back, opening the door wide and gestured to the living room to the left of the hall. "What's the story, Billy?"

Walking into the plain room, Dean looked around. Under the south-facing windows, a long sofa was faced by a low table and several armchairs. A table took up most of the other half of the double room, surrounded by matching chairs. He sat on the sofa, and looked at the men.

"Steven Huler caught him red-handed, got the video on that new system of his, stealing out of his store," the deputy said, thumbs hooked in his belt.

"Huler's an ass," Sonny commented mildly. "What'd he steal?"

"Had about a week's worth of food stashed in his coat," the deputy said. "Nothing pricey, but yeah, Huler's tight about that stuff."

"Food?"

"Just that."

"You get hold of his family?"

Dean looked at the floor when the man's eyes turned to him. The cop had given chapter and verse of the conversation he'd had with John Winchester.

"Well, we reached his old man," the deputy said, a slight thread of amusement in his voice. "Once he heard what happened, he said let him rot in jail."

He hadn't been allowed to speak to his father. His phone call had gone to Jim, to come and get Sammy, make sure he was safe. He'd been relieved when the cop had said they'd gotten hold of Dad. That'd lasted about the thirty seconds it'd taken the deputy to tell him the upshot of the conversation.

"Judge is off for a few weeks, and he can't go into county. If you can take him, it'd solve the problem."

"I don't see why not, man," Sonny said.

"'preciate it, Sonny," Billy said, taking off his sunglasses.

Dean heard Sonny's indrawn breath.

"Where'd you get the shiner?"

"Little shit resisted arrest," the deputy said sourly.

Dean looked at them, his face cold and set. It'd been reaction, and he'd realised as soon as the blow had connected that it hadn't been the smart move. Not that he was going to admit to that now.

"How long till the judge gets back?" Sonny said, diverting the tension smoothly.

"'nother eight weeks, Alice tells me. Went down to Florida."

"Alright." Sonny turned away from the sofa. "You put a good thick steak on that eye, Billy."

"Yeah."

Dean stared back as the deputy gave him another dirty look, his belt clanking loudly as he walked out of the room.

"Hit first, ask questions later?" Sonny said mildly, sitting in the armchair across from him. "That approach working for you, kid?"

Shrugging, Dean looked at the cuffs still circling his wrists. "Do these stay on indefinitely?"

To his surprise, Sonny smiled, showing even white teeth with a glint of gold to one side. "You get him pissed at you, he leaves with the key," he said. The smile faded as the older man looked at him. "You can get out of them, can't you?"

"If you've got a paperclip," Dean agreed, meeting his eyes steadily.

"Thought so." Sonny leaned forward and reached into a shallow ceramic bowl sitting on the low table. "This is quicker."

He tossed a small silver handcuff key and Dean caught it, blinking in surprise. The cuffs were off and on the table in only slightly less time than it would've taken him with a paperclip.

"What's to stop me from just taking off?" he said, rubbing his wrists as he looked around the room.

"You don't strike me as being a stupid kid," Sonny said, getting to his feet.

His father might argue that, Dean thought, his gaze dropping. The guy was right. If he ran, he'd be on his own. He knew the area, there weren't any easy ways out and he'd been arrested and charged. He'd be picked up before he made the highway. And even if he didn't, he knew his father would be madder if he tried to break for it. The message had been loud and clear.

"So what's the plan?" he asked, looking up as Sonny turned for the door.

"You stay here, till arraignment," Sonny said, looking over his shoulder at him. "You get a clean bed, three squares a day and you work on the place. We grow some crops, some fruit, run a few head of livestock. I got thirteen boys here, from eleven to eighteen. Everyone gets along. Everyone works."

"And if I don't?"

"Then you can pay for your room and board."

"With what?"

"Well, I'll just bill your old man."

That thought hit him hard and low and Dean looked away sharply.

"Come on, I'll fix you something to eat," Sonny said.

Dean watched him leave the room, his thoughts circling around the trap he'd put himself into. He didn't mind hard work. He'd done enough for it to not be taxing. Sure as shit, it beat going to jail.

He followed Sonny out of the room and down the hallway, coming into a brightly-lit, big kitchen. Ex-con, he thought, looking at the man's lean frame and the jailhouse tattoo just visible beneath the cuff of his shirt. The appraisal held no judgement, one way or the other. He watched him take a loaf of bread from the counter, set it on the table along with ham, cheese and tomatoes from the fridge.

"Why'd you do this?" he asked, leaning against the doorway. He wasn't sure why he'd asked, if it was to make conversation or something more personal.

Sonny looked up and lifted a shoulder in a casual shrug. "I started early, nickel and dime stuff. Didn't know any better at the time," he said, his tone open and unconcerned, as if that past no longer bothered him. "Went down the first time at fifteen, and then every three or four years till I hit twenty-six." He finished the sandwich, cutting it in half and setting it on a plate.

Dean walked to the table as the plate was pushed toward him.

"I saw a lotta kids get beaten up by the system, not having a way out. Figured it was a good way to try and make up for some of things I did, giving them a way," Sonny continued, his eyes on the second sandwich in front of him.

"So, you think this gives people a second chance?"

Sonny looked up, face creasing into a slow smile. "I don't 'think', kid, I know. Not with everyone, not all the time, but enough to make it worth my while."

"County pay you for taking the kids off their books?"

"Some," Sonny said frankly. "And we make enough from the farm to pay for the rest."

"Talk about nickel and dime," Dean commented, tucking the mouthful of sandwich into one cheek.

"Bills are paid, and do I look like the kind of man who needs a gold-plated Rolls?" He picked up his sandwich and took a bite, waving a hand at the fridge. "Sodas in there, help yourself. And eat fast."

* * *

><p><em><strong>2013. Hurleyville, New York<strong>_

Dean loosened his fingers around the wheel, stretching hands and forearms as he took the exit ramp and followed the road around and under the interstate.

Beside him, Sam was hunched up against the door, his jacket over his shoulder. He'd taken the middle shift, and they were almost there, the sky lightening in the east but sunrise another hour away.

He hadn't lied about it to his brother. Hadn't quite told him the truth either. It'd been more than alright, those two months at Sonny's. Time out of his life, out of the responsibilities he'd had since he'd been able to remember. Time without his family or monsters or guns or salt, when he'd woken up just Dean and gone to bed … just Dean.

The work had been easy, a helluva lot easier than digging up graves, lugging forty-pound packs through impossible terrain, training every day and trying to keep up with his little brother, schoolwork, responsibility and the low-grade, ever-present fear that dogged most of their nights. The other kids had been a mixed bag, some hardened and wary, some anxious and afraid, nearly all of them with some kind of screw up in their short pasts, but he'd noticed, the longer he'd been there, that a lot of the knots that had tied those kids up, inside, had begun to unravel, slowly but surely as the days drifted by in steady routine. By the time he'd left, he'd seen them laugh, unselfconsciously enjoying themselves. He'd thought that Sonny had it very right then, seeing those smiles.

There were a dozen tutors in a range of topics who gave up their time to come out and teach what they could. He'd gotten a taste for the novels of Vonnegut from one, a stick-thin and sarcastic woman called Trudy, who'd handed him Slaughterhouse and told him to get over himself. And he'd learned to play the guitar, some songs anyway. He pushed that memory aside, not quickly enough to prevent the melancholy melody, picked out on the strings, from coming back.

Crossing Brophy Road, the turns came back to him automatically, and he turned off the headlights as the world brightened around him. They were going to be there early, he thought, glancing at his watch, but that wouldn't matter. Sonny had always been up before five.

The township and houses drew back and fields filled both sides of the road, cut by copses and the glint of water, pearlescent reflections of the milky sky. The whole county had dozens of lakes and ponds, large and small, sometimes joined by creeks and rivers, sometimes not.

Sam stirred, opening an eye and looking around. "We there?"

"Almost," Dean told him, shifting down as he took the last road, well-maintained gravel that led up to the farm.

Bumping over the corrugations between the gate posts, he felt a rush of emotion, tangled with memories that were too bright and vivid, sight and sound and smell and taste and touch mixed up. His arms feeling the weight of last winter's haybales, prickling against his skin, the summer smell faded a little as he carried them across the fields; the hollow clock of a ball sweetly hit and arcing up into a blamelessly blue sky, the hit reverberating through his fingers and wrists and elbows, hard ground under his sneakers and the slightly mouldy scent of canvas as he slid for the base, his team exhorting him on; high, unbroken voices, cracking voices, the deeper timbre of the older boys; the warmth of spring sun on bare skin, sitting in the field, oil and solvent filling his nostrils, changing out a worn bearing with Sonny so that the tractor would run; the delicately picked notes, changing and deepening with the chords, a brush against his wrist of long, silky hair, mixed up with the smell of pie, baking downstairs in the kitchen and an earth-scented breeze from the open window, cooling the heat in his skin.

It'd only been eight weeks, here. Sometimes, in his memories, it'd felt like a lifetime.

He pulled up out the front of the porch, turning off the engine and silence filled the car, not real silence but country silence, birdsong in the trees and the distant rumble of machinery, the sound of a saw going somewhere further away.

"It's quiet," Sam remarked, getting out.

"Mmm-hmmm."

They walked up the steps to the porch together, Dean knocking on the front door. It opened a moment later and a small, hard-faced woman looked up at them warily.

"What can I do for you boys?"

"I'm, uh, Dean, this is my brother, Sam," Dean said, looking for any familiarity in the large, suspicious eyes that studied him. "We're, uh, old buddies of Sonny's."

"Prison buddies?" she asked expressionlessly.

Dean heard Sam clear his throat behind and looked away for a moment. "No – uh, no, you mind telling him that we're here?"

She looked at him carefully for a moment longer, then nodded. "I'll go get him."

Dean stepped forward, pulling open the screen door and she turned back, looking down at their boots. "I just mopped this floor, so you take off those road-stompers," she added over her shoulder.

Sam glanced at Dean and hooked a toe in the back of his boot, sliding it off, Dean doing the same as she turned back into the house.

"So, Sonny's an ex-con, huh?" Sam asked quietly.

Looking at him, Dean shrugged. "Oh, and we're such angels?"

He walked into the hall and stopped at the doorway to the living room. It'd changed, over the last eighteen years, the floral wallpaper pulled down and a yellowish paint covering the walls. The dark-stained trim was the same. Instead of the long, sagging green sofa, a newer, beige one took the space under the windows, and several prints and paintings hung around the walls, along with the photographs that Sonny had started had hanging when he'd been there. Now the south-facing wall was covered by them, sizes varying, but the faces smiling, clear, healthy-looking.

"Well, you grew up tall, kid."

He turned to see Sonny come through the dining room doorway, older, the brown hair heavily threaded with grey now, black-rimmed glasses magnifying the blue eyes a little. Handle-bar moustache was still there, greyed out but thick, bracketing Sonny's wide smile as he walked fast toward them.

"Long time," he said, hugging the man tightly. "Good to see you."

"You too, man," Sonny said, his arms tightening slightly and releasing him, keeping a grip on his shoulders as he stepped to look him over. "I tried to call but the numbers were disconnects."

"Yeah, we – uh," Dean hesitated, shaking his head. "We had to change over a few times in the last couple of years. I kept meaning to call, time just … got away, you know."

"I do," Sonny said, meeting his eyes. He didn't know what Sonny saw there, but his smile faded for a moment, and Dean dropped his gaze.

"And this must be Sam," Sonny said, turning to extend a hand to his brother. Sam shook it and Dean drew in a breath.

"Good to meet you," Sam said.

Sonny grinned. "Back at you, brother."

"Farm looks good." Dean commented, looking through the windows.

Sonny looked at him, one brow lifted. "Oh please, it's barely standing. Only got a handful of kids working around here now."

"Why's that?"

"Progress, I guess," Sonny said, glancing behind at the housekeeper who was polishing the dining table assiduously. "Ruth, if it's not too much trouble, could we get some coffee here?"

She looked up at him, nodding and turning away to go to the kitchen.

"System's changed. They put 'em in kid jail now, most of which are as bad or worse than real jail." Sonny told him, gesturing to the sofa and armchairs surrounding the table. "Reckon it's more cost-effective."

He shook his head as Ruth came back in with three cups on a tray and a pot of black coffee. "Thanks, Ruth."

Pouring out the coffee, he pushed the cups toward the brothers and took his own. "Not sure how cost-effective it'll be when those kids are grown men and don't know anything but crime, but nobody asks me."

"What happened here?"

"You remember Jack, right?" Sonny asked, putting his cup down on the table.

"Yeah," Dean said, giving him a crooked smile. "Threatened real good."

"That's him," Sonny nodded. "Somehow, our ancient, broken-down, rusted-up tractor just roared into life and ran him over the other night."

Sam glanced at Dean, looking back at Sonny when his brother seemed lost in thought. "Maybe it – maybe it just slipped out of Park, or something?"

"Hasn't got a gearbox," Sonny said, his mouth twisting up in a humourless smile. "Rear axle's been rusted solid for five years now. That's not it."

"Was that the first thing?" Dean asked.

"No, things haven't been right for nearly six months now," Sonny said, his voice dropping. "Lights flicker, have to change the bulbs every few days, but the electrician's been out four times and he can't find a problem, no shorts, everything's hooked up the way it should be. We thought we had a rat problem, heard a lot of scratching, in the walls, in the roof? I laid out the baits and traps myself, and haven't caught a single one. No holes gnawed anywhere neither, just the noises, usually late at night. It started out small, mostly stuff that you can ignore, if you really want to. Then the windows and doors starting opening and closing by themselves. We had a couple of boys getting scratched up in the night." He wiped his hand down over his face and Dean saw the lines of stress, the hollows under his eyes. "I did some reading up, a while ago," he said, turning to look at Dean. "That's when I tried to call you, Dean. I figured maybe we had a – well, you know, a ghost problem."

"Alright, can you get the boys together, while we take a look around?" Dean asked, glancing at Sam. His brother nodded slightly.

"Shouldn't be a problem," Sonny said. "How long you need?"

"A couple of hours," Sam said.

"Their day doesn't start as early as mine …" Sonny looked at his watch and Dean realised again how early it was. "But we could go get some breakfast in town, get some supplies, be back around ten?"

"That'd be great," Dean told him. They watched Sonny walk out of the room for the staircase, and Dean looked at Sam. "House or barn?"

"House." He expected an argument, but Dean just nodded and turned around, going back out to the porch for his boots.

* * *

><p>Sam looked around the room curiously, pulling his meter from his pocket and turning it on. The low hum and almost flat needle was reassuring and he moved slowly through the room, slowing down at the wall of photographs, looking at the faces. He saw his brother a little above his eye level, near the middle. Dean was grinning widely at the camera, eyes lit up and his face open, an expression he found uncharacteristically endearing, one rare enough in his own memories of growing up. He was standing beside a grey pickup, Sonny standing beside him, both holding oily rags, their hands covered in grease.<p>

Moving away a little reluctantly, he headed through the dining room and down to the kitchen, working his way systematically through the first floor. He heard and registered the boys coming down the stairs, the front door opening and closing and the muffled sound of an engine starting, but he kept his attention on the meter and the rooms, checking each thoroughly before he turned for the stairs.

The second floor held five bedrooms and two baths, a generous linen closet and a narrow doorway leading up to the attic. Twice the meter had yipped, the needle rising and subsiding, once in the bedroom at the southern end of the house, the second time in the bathroom closest to it. Looking at the beds in the room, three bunk beds and two singles, lined around the walls, Sam moved slowly through them again, but the meter stayed silent.

The attic had been partitioned and lined, some time ago, by the looks of it, Sam thought. Three bedrooms took up most of the space, two of the bedrooms each with six single beds, the third positioned at the end of a short hall between them. His gaze flicking between the meter and the belongings of the kids who were living there, Sam stopped abruptly as he caught sight of a pentagram that had been carved into a foot post of one of the beds. He glanced at the other foot post, seeing the same symbol carved there and into the two headboard posts.

At the foot of the bed, tape had been stuck, a name written across it. Under the top layer, Sam saw several others. He peeled them back, stopping when he came to his brother's.

He'd really been here, he thought, a little dazedly. Lived here, with the ex-con and a couple of dozen other boys, working on the tractor and in the fields, ignored by their father. He still couldn't get a handle on how Dean had felt about that, but he wanted to know, now.

There was a soft noise, from the end of the room, and Sam shunted his thoughts aside, getting to his feet and moving silently across the floorboards, the meter back in his pocket and Ruby's knife slipping with a whisper from the sheath at the back of his hip.

The third bedroom, he thought, sliding sideways through the partly-open door at the other end of the room, the noise resolving into a thready murmur. A light spilled across the hall, pale gold on the dusty floor, and he walked closer.

When he flung the door wide, Ruth leapt to her feet, both hands clutched at her chest, the rosary hanging from them, her eyes bulging as she stared at him.

"Oh, I – I'm sorry," Sam stammered, the knife disappearing behind him. "I thought – I – uh – sorry, I thought I – saw something – and uh –"

"Like a – a ghost?" she asked him.

He looked at her quizzically. "You think there's a ghost here?"

Her gaze dropped to the rosary in her hands. "Yes. Sonny told me that you were old friends, and maybe that's true too, but you're here looking for it, aren't you? The ghost?"

"What ghost?" Sam straightened up a little.

Ruth gestured vaguely around the room. "I grew up here, in this town. I used to come up to this farm when I was a little girl, with my mother, to buy their fruit. The Wasserlaufs owned it back then. Howard and Doreen," she said, looking up at him. "Jack Longman – the man who was killed – he worked here back then, as a farmhand."

"You think the ghost is from his past?"

"Howard was a nice man," Ruth said, crossing herself. "But that'd disappear when he got into that corn liquor. And one night, he got it into his thick skull that Jack and Doreen were rolling around in the hay." She sighed. "It wasn't true but for some men, liquor has a way of making things true and he tried to kill them both. Jack got away, went to town to get the police, but Doreen –"

"He killed her."

"With a meat cleaver," Ruth confirmed, her gaze lifting to meet his sadly. "He got life in jail."

"He still there?"

"No, he died a year ago, in Fishkill." She shook her head. "He always swore he'd get his revenge on Jack. I guess … I thought … well, he finally got it."

"Was he interred at Fishkill?" Sam asked, wondering if Howard was the problem. Why'd the ghost take six months to start stirring things up, and then another six months before killing Jack?

"No, they brought his remains back here," Ruth said, glancing to the window. "He's buried in the old cemetery."

"Thanks."

* * *

><p>Dean pushed the big sliding door aside, not far enough for the catch to click and let it go, the door rattling closed behind him. The tractor was sitting there, a sixty-five horsepower monster whose innards he'd been through a couple of times. Now it was a hunk of junk, and as he walked up beside it, he bent slightly, seeing the solidly rusted rear axle and the pool of old, old oil that had stained the concrete floor under it. Sonny'd been right. The tractor hadn't moved without help. Pulling out his EMF meter, he turned it out, watching without surprise as the lights glowed red and the needle flatlined to the right, the volume down but the unit yawping anyway.<p>

It'd been a dairy barn, at some time, the ground floor divided into a couple of bays for the machinery, a workshop at the rear, and the rest into the aisle and pens where the milking machines had sat, long gone even when he'd been here.

_It's creepy, the hay barn's nicer._

The girl's voice ran through his mind as the memory came back. _He'd laughed softly and caught her hand, leading her back down the wide aisle to the ladder that led to the loft._

_Hay barn's not private enough, he'd said, and she'd followed him._

Shaking off the fragment, he stopped as he came into what had had been the aisle, turned into a workshop as well now. In the centre, hanging from a rafter, a bare bulb was swinging, back and forth.

"Hello? Anyone in here?"

The nerves at the back of his neck prickled slightly and the muted yip of the meter in his pocket underscored it. Pivoting on his heel, he looked around the mostly open area and felt his heart jump as he saw the boy standing behind him.

"Hey, kid, what're you doing here by yourself?"

Eight or nine, he thought, maybe older but small for his age. A mop of mousy brown hair had been inexpertly cut to keep it off his face, and wire-rimmed glasses magnified brown eyes as he stared up at him.

"Fighting monsters," the boy said, his voice high.

"What kind of monsters?" Dean asked warily. There was something about the kid that was off, he thought, the prickling sensation at the back of his neck strengthening slightly.

"All sorts," the boy said, lifting the toy in his hands and looking down at it. "With Bruce, the Monster Smasher."

The sight of the toy was surprisingly reassuring, one of the army of plastic action figures that filled every modern toy store from here to Tokyo. Dean looked at it consideringly.

"Hmmm, is that a cape?" he asked. The boy turned the toy around and nodded. "Little impractical for smashing monsters, huh? You know, you could choke–"

The boy lifted the toy and pressed a button somewhere on it and a thin, recorded voice emerged. "I clobber evil!"

"Yeah, I bet you do," Dean allowed. He stepped forward and held out his hand to the boy. "I'm Dean."

"Timmy."

He looked down at the boy's hand, holding the tips of his fingers in a light squeeze and shaking.

_When you shake a man's hand, it tells him everything about you_, his father's voice whispered in his mind. _From how you face a problem, to how far you'll go to fix one_.

He crouched in front of Timmy. "Let's try that again."

"You're gonna be a man," he said, his eye level slightly below Timmy's now. "You're gonna learn how to shake like one, okay?"

Timmy looked down at him uncertainly, the toy clutched against his chest. Dean extended his hand.

"So, gimme your best kung-fu grip," he told the boy, watching as Timmy reached out. This time the boy's hand closed up with his, thumb joint to thumb joint. "Now, look me straight in the eye and let me know you mean business."

He had the feeling that Timmy wasn't too practised at a straight eye-to-eye contact, but he gave the kid an 'A' for effort. "Shake as hard as you can."

Timmy's hand tightened and he kept the eye contact as he shook. "That's it," Dean said, mouth curving up in an encouraging half-smile. "You shake like that, you'll be alright."

The boy looked at his hand a little doubtfully but didn't argue.

"Hey, Timmy, did you know Jack, who worked here?"

The boy's hesitant smile disappeared as he nodded slowly.

"What can you tell me about him?"

"He yelled a lot," Timmy said, his gaze cutting slightly to the side. "He was yelling when he had his accident."

"How do you know that?" Dean asked, trying to read the kid. He was curiously shut-off, the thought remote but insistent.

"'Cause me and the other boys were playing in here when it happened," Timmy said, looking back at him.

"Did you see anything?"

The boy shook his head, his gaze dropping. A lie, Dean thought, but not one he was willing to press, not yet.

"Is there anything else about that night that you can remember? Anything at all?"

Timmy looked down at the toy, a crease appearing between his brows. "It suddenly got really cold," he said hesitantly. "Like a winter night cold. I could see my breath. Can I go? I was supposed to go with Sonny but I took too long, and I don't want to get in trouble."

"Yeah, you better roll," Dean said distractedly, getting to his feet. He watched Timmy leave and pulled the meter out again. The lights were dark, the needle resting just above the lowest reading. He frowned at it, pivoting slowly around again. It stayed dark and silent.

* * *

><p>Dean leaned against the porch column, looking down through the trees to the trees that lined the small river. Beside him, Sonny smoothed down his moustache.<p>

"So you think it's this Howard guy?"

"Walking and talking like a duck," Dean said, shrugging. "We'll burn the remains and that should be the end of it."

Sam stood on the steps, a couple of yards from them, and Dean dropped his voice slightly.

"Do you, uh, know if … uh …"

Sonny turned to look at him, a glint of humour in his eyes. "She took over her old man's place, Cus's, you remember it?"

He nodded. "Yeah, thanks."

"Still make the best pancakes around."

Looking at the slight smile creasing Sonny's face, Dean nodded again. "Just thought I'd …"

"Yeah."

He cleared his throat and straightened up. "We'll be by in the morning, let you know what happened."

"That'd be good," Sonny said, the amusement gone as he matched the younger man's tone. "Listen, Dean, I don't know what's happened for you, you, uh, don't look like it's been a bed of roses –"

Dean looked away, shrugging.

"Hear me out, man," Sonny said, dropping a hand on his arm. "I just wanted to say thanks."

"No need," he said. "This is what we do."

For a moment, he thought Sonny would keep going, and Sam was standing too close. He was relieved when the older man nodded and let go, stepping back.

"See you in the morning, then."

* * *

><p>"Why'd it all start up six months ago if this dude has been buried for a year?" Dean asked, sitting on the edge of the motel's bed and taking another bite of the lukewarm burger they'd picked up from Fallburg's bar and grill. He didn't remember the burgers there being so ordinary.<p>

"Yeah, that got me too, but so far it's the only possibility we got," Sam agreed, wadding up the wrappings from his food and tossing them into the trash can across the room. "And so far as motivation goes, it's pretty damned thin."

"Right, he killed his wife, for an affair that didn't even happen."

"Yeah." Sam closed the laptop on the table and leaned back in the chair, closing his eyes. "We're still digging up the remains and taking care of it?"

"Yeah."

"Right."

Dean looked at him, swallowing the final bite of his burger and picking up the beer from the floor. Sam had something on his mind. Sooner or later it was going pop out and probably bite him on the ass.

"What?"

Opening his eyes, his brother turned to look at him questioningly. "What?"

"You got something brewing around in there, Sammy, spit it out."

"I was just wondering why you didn't tell me – any of this – later on? I mean, anytime in the last eight years would've been fine."

Sighing inwardly, Dean finished the beer and got up, walking to the trash can and dropping in the burger wrappings and bottle. He leaned against the narrow kitchen counter and looked back at Sam.

"It didn't seem that important, given everything that's been happening in the last eight years," he said, honestly enough. There'd been times, sure, he could've coughed it up, but the memories hadn't been triggered by anything over most of that time, and he hadn't seen the point to talking about it. Too much time had passed. Too much had happened. It was – it felt like – it'd been another time, a whole other lifetime.

"Huh."

"Come on, let's get this mook salted and burned," Dean said, grabbing his coat off the end of the bed and picking up the canvas duffle. "You got a location for the grave?"

"Yeah."

He could feel Sam's curiosity, pushed aside for the moment but still there. It wasn't the end of the conversation, he knew, just a momentary distraction. It didn't matter now, he guessed. That part had been the truth. What had happened, who he'd been back then, was long gone.

* * *

><p>The shovels bit into the soft earth, and they worked automatically, at either end of the grave, finding a rhythm that worked so that they didn't throw dirt over each other, or inadvertently hit each other. It was as natural as breathing and required less thought.<p>

"So … Dad didn't want you to tell me? How come? Was this place really so bad?"

Dean pushed his foot down on the top of the blade, filling it dig deeper, the scrape hiding the soft exhale he let out.

"No, it wasn't bad," Dean said, swinging his shovel-load out. "I don't remember why he didn't want me to tell you. It was eighteen years ago, Sam."

"Hey." Sam's shovel hit something hard, and he lifted it out of the hole, sweeping the dirt covering the coffin aside with his foot.

Saved by the body, Dean thought humourlessly, tossing his shovel out and shifting back to the wall of the hole, his fingers finding the edge of the coffin and lifting. He turned, finding Sam's hand exactly where he expected it, gripping it with his own as his brother leaned back and pulled him out.

He grabbed the salt as Sam picked up the bottle of butane, both coating the bones inside from end to end. Neither spoke or had to. The routine was fixed into the marrow of their bones, too many salt'n'burns to ever be able to count.

"Alright, let's barbecue old McDonald here," Dean said, pulling out a matchbook from the grill and lighting the pack. "And get the hell out of Dodge." He tossed the book into the grave and the butane caught easily, the flare lighting their faces as they watched the bones burn.

"So what do you remember?" Sam asked. "I mean, Sonny seems like a pretty good friend."

"He is," Dean said, keeping his gaze on the fire below them. "He was – he was practical about everything," he added, remembering the man's prosaic advice. "It wasn't a jail, more like a – half-way house, I guess. There were maybe two, two and half dozen kids here. We worked between four and six hours a day, had three big meals, played ball when everyone wasn't too tired." He shrugged. "Most of the kids went to school every day. Sonny organised tutors to come out to smooth over the lack of education in some of the older ones."

"Sounds like it was well-organised," Sam said, his brow creasing up a little.

Dean looked at him. "You've seen the place," he said, trying to keep the thread of defensiveness he could feel out of his voice. "It still is."

The flames were dying out in the grave and he turned away, picking up his shovel and digging into the earth pile, loading and throwing the dirt back into the grave. Filling it in took less time than digging it out but it was still another hour before the grave was done and they could leave.

He took both shovels as Sam picked up the lantern and empty salt bag, and they walked back to the car. The shovels went into the trunk and he closed it, wiping his hands down the sides of his jeans.

The car engine started with its familiar and comforting rumble, and Dean turned the wheel, heading back for the motel. A few hours' sleep, a quick check on the house in the morning and they could get back to dealing with the possibility of a war between Hell and the outcasts of Heaven. He rolled his eyes a little as he turned off the gravel and onto the asphalt of the narrow road.

"Did you –" Sam said hesitantly, and Dean turned to look at him, one brow lifted.

"Did you like it here?"

He had. He couldn't say that to his brother. Couldn't share those final pieces, the feelings that had plagued him every moment almost of the eight weeks he'd been here. He'd seen something different, something carefree and filled with promise and it had drawn him in a way he couldn't express then, and couldn't now.

"Nah," he told Sam, licking his lips at the outright lie. "It was boring."

He could feel his brother's gaze, boring into the side of his head. What was one more lie – now? He'd made his choice anyway.


	14. Chapter 14 The Piper's Calling

**Chapter 14 The Piper's Calling**

* * *

><p><em><strong>1995. Hurleyville, New York<strong>_

Dean came through the back door, turning automatically to the sink and washing the dirt and grease from his hands, drying them on the threadbare towel hanging on a hook beside it. Trip had been talking about the guitar lady for the last two days, and he figured he'd judge for himself if she was any good.

He heard the picked notes as he walked down the hall, the melody instantly and achingly familiar, haunting him with an avalanche of memories of the black car and his father and his brother and towns and roads and rooms. Hesitating outside the living room door, he waited until the player stopped, then stepped out, looking in to see this Mrs Cussler, who played Zeppelin for kids in a reform home.

He froze on the threshold. On the long sofa, it wasn't some middle-aged lady holding the guitar but a girl. A girl with chestnut hair with red undertones, more obvious here, as the sunlight from the window touched it, and when she looked up at him, he saw that her eyes were as green as his, maybe a shade lighter. Robin.

"So I was right to be worried about you," she said, her brow arching up.

He couldn't think of anything to say to that.

"You here for a lesson?"

"Uh, sure, if you're giving it," he said, clearing his throat hurriedly as the words came out a bit higher than he'd expected.

"Have you played before?" she asked him, moving over slightly on the sofa when he walked to it and sat down beside her.

He smiled, holding out his hands. She passed the guitar to him and he heard the notes in his head, playing them slowly.

"It's not a bass, but pretty good on the chords," she laughed, leaning away to pick up the second guitar. "You picked that up by ear?"

Nodding, he watched her fingers centre themselves on the strings. He learned by eye, by watching, drilling method and procedure into the memories of his bones, of his muscles and brain, all at the same time. Now, as her fingers moved from Am to C and then to D, he followed them with his own, pressing hard against the strings, holding them down against the fret, focussing first on the chord positions, then on what she was doing with the pick in the fingers of her strumming hand.

He knew this song as well, the tune humming under his breath as his eyes followed hers and his fingers did the same.

"You're quick," Robin commented with a smile, stopping after the first chorus. "It's Dean, right?"

"Good memory." He grinned at her, pleased she'd remembered. "Can you teach me Stairway?"

"I can teach it, the question is, can you learn it?" she asked him, her eyes lighting up a little.

"Try me." He tried to ignore the frisson of heat that zipped down his spine as he registered her interest and, belatedly, recognised his own, brows drawing together as he followed the chords, and the strings she plucked to pick out the melody.

"One thing at a time," she said, after he fumbled the strings for the second time. "Look, D, G, B, E on the first chord."

She slid closer to him, her hair slipping over her shoulder and brushing against his wrist as she showed him the first chord, the scent of it enveloping him for a moment. He didn't have time to do anything before she'd moved back, picking up her guitar and playing the chord and strings together again slowly.

He followed her, lips parted a little as he tried to keep his breathing even, hardly able to hear the damned notes through the thunder of his heartbeat in his ears.

"Right."

He looked at her in surprise, replaying the last minute and realising he'd played the first phrase right through.

"Robin?" A woman's voice came from the hall, and he looked around to see a tall woman stop in the doorway, hair a darker shade than her daughter's, and braided back, in jeans and a loose, smocked top. "You're taking on students now as well?"

"Oh well, just the ones with special ability," Robin said casually, putting her guitar in the case on the table and holding out her hand to him for the one he was holding. "This is Dean … um …"

"Winchester, ma'am," Dean said, getting to his feet as he handed the guitar to her.

"Nice to meet you, Dean Winchester," the woman said, the corners of her mouth tucking in a little. "You've met my daughter, I'm Judy Cussler. Do you like music?"

"Yeah, definitely," he said, sidling along the edge of the sofa as Robin picked up a second case from the floor and put the guitar in it.

"Good, the more music in the world, the better off we all are." Judy smiled at him. "Robin, if Dean could help you with the cases, I'll be in the car."

"Uh …"

"No problem," he assured her, taking both cases as soon as the clips were fastened. He followed her into the hall and out onto the porch.

"How often do you come out here?"

"Twice a week, when school's in, Mom tries to get out more often if it's out," Robin said over her shoulder as she walked down the steps.

"How long would it take me to learn Stairway?" he asked.

"Depends on how fast you can pick it up and how much you can remember between lessons," she told him, turning for the cases as they reached the cream and beige station wagon sitting by the gate. She lifted the case into the back, lowering her voice a little as she leaned closer to him to take the second one. "I know Sonny's got a guitar somewhere in there, but I think it needs new strings. It'll be faster if you can practise in between classes."

"I'll ask," he told her, feeling his fingers tingle as hers brushed over them. "So when are you back?"

She set the case next to the other one and closed the hatch, smiling as she turned back to him. The smile went right through him. "Tuesday."

"See you then," he said, backing up a step or two. Judy started the engine and Robin lifted her hand as she walked around to the passenger door and got in.

The smile stayed with him through the afternoon chores and dinner and followed him down into his dreams.

* * *

><p><em><strong>2013. Hurleyville, New York<strong>_

Dean rolled over in the semi-darkness, looking at the light from the motel's sign where it outlined the curtains.

They'd played – like – like kids, he thought, letting his memories in. It'd taken him a while of being there to get that, that he could be a kid there, exchanging good-natured insults with the other boys, playing games without the cutthroat edge of competition he'd felt under his father's eye, learning to lose – occasionally – without worrying about it.

It'd been a strange spring, filled with heatwaves and thunderstorms, and they'd swum in the pond, and played their scratch games and trickling through every memory were the notes, the chords of songs, and emotions that had probably been totally normal for other kids, but had been revolutionary to him, with the intoxicating freedom to be just himself.

He'd chased her down to the river, he remembered, the air thick and hot and heavy, both of them laughing so much they could hardly run. Under the cooler shade of the woods lining the banks, it'd still been pretty innocent, still just kids, stripping down to their underwear and half-jumping, half-falling into the cold water, coming for air, splashing around to cool off.

And then it'd changed.

She'd tried to push him under, he remembered, laughing as her lesser weight'd had no effect whatsoever, but close to him, her arms around his shoulders. Close enough for him to see that her eyes were lighter because the green irises had tiny grey flecks scattered over them, and were rimmed in a circle of darker green. Close enough to feel her giggling exhales on his mouth and along his jaw.

He'd been sixteen and had gotten as far as third base on a few occasions, new guy at the schools and towns they'd passed through, irresistible and slightly distant and he'd worked the mystery as well as he'd known how to, but something had invariably happened before he'd gone any further, lack of time, or the case finished or injury or something.

His arms had snaked around her in the river, pulling her close, right up against him and he'd looked into her eyes as she'd curled her hands around the back of his neck, the laughter gone, heartbeats accelerating, skin to skin sending a tingling flux of heat through him from head to foot, and through her, fair skin turning pink as her lips had parted.

That kiss, he remembered, had been … incendiary. As different from any other he'd had before as heat was from cold, darkness from light, night from day. Every detail clung, clustered together in his memories, the warm softness of her lips, the humming vibration of a moan – he didn't know if it'd come from him or her, even now – the feel of her, tight against his chest, against stomach and hips and thighs, and when they'd broke apart, at the first distant cry, her eyes had been dark, and she hadn't pulled away, and it hadn't been until her mother's second far-away call that she'd reluctantly let him go, splashing back to the bank, gathering up her clothes and pulling them over with difficulty over slick, wet skin, looking back and waving, her lip caught between her teeth. She'd stumbled back through the woods and he'd stayed there for a moment or two longer, his whole body aching with shock and arousal and the fierce, bright want in it.

Rolling over onto his back, a little carefully as he noted wryly that the vivid memory had filled him with more than just a dry recollection, he thought it'd been then that the feelings, his feelings, had crystallised into the mind-blowing realisation that his life could be different.

It might've been the combination of the heat and the girl and everything they'd stirred up, he considered but it hadn't felt like that. It'd felt like a door had opened in a dark room, and he'd seen light and colour for the first time, dazzling and bright with an unthought-of, unimagined promise.

Of course, nothing in his life had ever been that easy.

* * *

><p>"What time do you want to get going?" Sam asked, pulling on a boot as he turned to look at his brother.<p>

"Five minutes," Dean told him, spitting out the last of the toothpaste into the sink and rinsing his mouth. "We'll grab some breakfast, then go see Sonny, let him know it's done."

Sam nodded, pulling on his other boot. He grabbed his jacket and picked up his bag, putting the bag in the trunk and stopping as Dean walked to the driver's door.

"Dude, what's wrong with that place?" he said, gesturing to the diner across the street, with a puzzled frown.

Dean glanced at it, and shrugged. "There's a better place closer to Sonny's."

Sam watched him get into the car and walked around from the trunk. How much better could it be, he wondered, glancing at the all-day specials chalked on the wall beside the place across the street. The menu held practically every one of his brother's favourites.

* * *

><p>Cus's Diner was a modest brick building with a pleasant, plant-festooned interior. It looked much the same as it had eighteen years ago, a fresh coat paint maybe, Dean thought, catching sight of her as she moved along the counter, talking and smiling to customers, long hair drawn back from her face but still loose at the back, a deeper red than he remembered.<p>

He sat down at a table, picking up the laminated menu and holding it, but keeping her in sight. Even at a distance, he could see her eyes, still that bright, clear green that he knew was flecked with silver-grey.

"Dean, you know I'm fine just grabbing a burger to go somewhere, right?" Sam said as he put the menu down. Dean was looking past him, focussed on something else and Sam started to turn around, his brother speaking up abruptly.

"What? And miss out on the best plate of pancakes you ever had?"

"Kind of on a timetable here."

Forcing himself to look at the menu, which also hadn't changed much in eighteen years, Dean shook his head.

"Not in that much of a hurry. It's a long drive, we stoke up while we can," he countered.

"Welcome to Cus's, what can I get you two?"

Her voice was deeper, he thought, a little surprised by that, his heading snapping up to look at her. She was looking at Sam, one brow lifted politely and he felt a weird doubling sensation as he searched her face, seeing the familiarities and changes, laid over each other. All of it was generating a feeling that was part longing, for the past, for the girl she'd been, for the boy he'd been, once upon a time, and part humming excitement, that maybe he could … he didn't know what … he hadn't thought that far ahead, had just been unable to leave without seeing her again, seeing her see _him_ again.

Smiling as she looked back at him, he said, "Bet you never thought you'd see me here, huh?"

Her attention sharpened and he saw a polite enquiry in the green eyes. It wasn't the reaction he'd been expecting. Hoping for, he corrected himself tensely, the excitement beginning to feel more like … anxiety.

"Uh, I'm running a little slow here," she said, turning to look at Sam. "Do you guys want to hear the specials?"

"Robin."

She turned her head back to him, and he caught a flicker of something, before the polite mask dropped back down. "Dean Winchester," he said, wondering if he'd really changed that much – or if he'd been all too forgettable.

"Um …"

"I used to live up at Sonny's," he prompted her, and from the corner of his eye, he saw Sam's face begin to scrunch up.

"Oh! Oh … uh," she said, her gaze cutting away on the last. "Look, sorry, there's so many boys who pass through there, it's hard to remember every name and face," she said, mostly to Sam. Caught between them, Dean struggled to keep his face expressionless, looking down as he saw Sam's expression tighten a little.

"Yeah, uh … yeah," he muttered at the table-top. "I'm sorry, I just … uh, remembered you coming up there with your mom – she'd give guitar lessons, it was a long time ago," he finished awkwardly, trying to stop speaking, picking up the menu and studying it as if his life depended on it. He could feel Sam's stare, curious and worse, radiating some kind of understanding, from across the table.

"Yeah, Mom, she loved helping out the boys," Robin said, looking back at Sam. "I guess that's why I kept giving lessons, after she passed."

He barely heard the words, hearing instead the discomfort in her voice, the underlying desire to not be there. That he heard all too well. He glanced at her and saw her clear her throat, looking at the menu she held in her hands.

The sight undid something in him, unscrewed some vital fastening. He hadn't known what he'd thought would happen, coming here, seeing her. He still didn't know. He hadn't forgotten. Not a fucking minute. Not a fucking _second_. When he'd left, a part of his heart had stayed here, and he realised he wasn't going to get it back. She didn't remember. His gaze dropped back to the menu and he stared at it, wishing for a hole to open under him, and just get him the fuck out of there.

"Hey, Robin?" A female voice called from the other side of the room, and he saw the relief in her as she glanced away.

"Ah, would you excuse me?" she said, turning away. "I'll be right back."

Another minute and he had the feeling he wouldn't be able to keep it all held down.

"Dude –"

"Let's go," Dean cut him off, dropping the menu and getting up, feeling his throat closing up. He didn't want to stay here – he couldn't fucking stay here. He wanted to get Sonny's, say his goodbyes and get a long fucking way away from here before this all hit him and he had to face what a fucking idiot he'd been.

"Wh–"

He heard the beginning of his brother's protest behind him, but he was already most of the way to the door, and Sam would just have to catch up.

Why the hell had he thought it would mean the same to her as it had to him? What the hell had he been thinking that there'd been something there and they'd both felt it? He hadn't gone back. He hadn't gotten in the car and gone to see her when his father had disappeared. Whatever had happened – to him, he guessed, since she'd obviously forgotten – had been a long time ago, back when he'd been a kid and stupid and it was gone.

* * *

><p>"What was that?" Sam asked, catching up to him as he hit the parking lot.<p>

"Nothing."

"Nothing?" Sam snorted.

Dean's phone rang and he grabbed for it, fingers fumbling the buttons awkwardly, unable for a moment to remember how the hell to pick up the call.

"Well, obviously it was something. Who was that waitress?" Sam persisted as he veered around the car.

"I said it was nothing," he snapped, lifting the phone as he reached the driver's side door of the black car and looked across the roof at his brother. "Alright? Drop it. Sonny? What?" He looked down at the roof, brows drawing together as he listened. "Slow down, when?"

Sam paused in opening the door and waited.

"Alright, we'll be there in five."

"What?"

"Ruth was killed this morning," Dean said, shoving the cell back in his pocket and opening the door.

"How?" Sam slid into the passenger side and pulled the door shut, looking at the tension in Dean's profile as he started the car. "Another attack?"

"Looks like," Dean said shortly, reversing out fast and swinging the car around to exit the lot. "Suffocated in a locked room, no one else there. Sonny said he couldn't get in, not 'til after she was dead."

"So it wasn't Howard," Sam mused, mostly to himself.

"Ya think."

* * *

><p>The Impala grumbled up the road, slowing as Dean and Sam saw the police cars, the flutter of crime scene tape and the ambulance parked outside the house and down the drive.<p>

Parking down near the road, they got out and walked up, standing outside the tape until Sonny saw them and nodded to the deputy to let them through.

"I tried to get in to save her, but the damned door wouldn't open, I couldn't even break it down," he told Dean as they climbed the porch steps. All three moved aside as the gurney came out of the house, body zipped out of sight in a bag.

"Locked?" Sam asked.

Sonny shook his head. "No locks on the farm."

"Sonny, is there anything else weird you can remember?" Dean asked him.

"Up to my chest in weird here, Dean."

"I know, I know. I mean really, anything?" He shook his head. "What was the first thing?"

"I – shit, I don't know, I can't remember anymore," Sonny said, looking down at the boards in frustration. "Wait a sec – okay, it started the night after we got new boys in," he said, eyes screwing shut as he tried to put the timeline in place. "Frank turned up with his step-father, that afternoon. Deputy brought Timmy around that evening. Sometime in the middle of the night, one of the boys said they saw a strange woman, walking around the attic but when they turned the lights on, she'd gone."

Sam frowned at Dean. "Alright, can I see those records? And your employee records?"

"They're in the office," Sonny said, looking from him to Dean. "What's going on here, man?"

"I don't know, not yet," Dean said. "We'll find it, don't worry about that. I'll go talk to the kids, see what they know."

Sam nodded, following Sonny into the house as Dean thumped away down the steps.

As they passed through the living room, Sam slowed, looking at the wall of photographs. "Sonny, I wanted to ask before, but these – these are all the kids you've had here?"

The older man stopped and turned around, looking at the photos with a slight grin. "Yep. All of them." He glanced at Sam and gestured self-consciously toward the picture in the middle. "Your brother was one of my favourites, you know. Came in here as self-contained as a cat."

"What happened?"

Sonny looked at him, the grin fading and his expression smoothing out. "Not my story to tell, Sam," he said quietly. "Dean has to tell that one."

Nodding, Sam's mouth curled up. Dean wouldn't tell him, he thought. Whatever had happened, whatever the changes were that had occurred here, he couldn't – or wouldn't – talk about them. They'd been a lot closer back then and he didn't buy his brother's dismissive comments about Dad not wanting to him to say anything.

"Files are in here," Sonny said, heading for the office.

Looking at the picture again, Sam let out a soft exhale and followed him. He didn't remember as much as he'd thought he did. He'd started fighting against his father more, sometime around '95. And he thought that Dean had withdrawn from both of them, at least for a while. He'd never been a moody teenager, but Dad had written off the periods of quiet, the occasional flare up of temper, the side-trips his brother had sometimes taken in the car, as just teenaged behaviour, too many hormones running amok.

"Take a seat," Sonny said as he entered the office, waving a hand toward the desk as he pulled out a filing cabinet drawer. He pulled out two files and handed them to Sam, turning back to a different cabinet and starting to search it.

Sitting at the old-fashioned wooden desk, Sam looked at the files. Jack Longman and Ruth Cornell. He opened Jack's and started to read through it, looking up a minute later at Sonny's muttered expletive.

"What?"

"Can't find Timmy's file," Sonny said, picking up a third file and putting it on the desk. "I know it was here, I only typed it up a couple of months ago, when I got the rest of the paperwork from the sheriff."

"What happened?" Sam asked, opening and skimming down Frank's file.

"He was in a car accident, killed his mom," Sonny said distractedly, looking through each of the drawers more carefully. "Wasn't far from here, actually. Single car, looked like she lost control and ran off the road into the woods."

"Why was Timmy brought here?" Sam frowned. The normal procedure was to appoint a ward and put him into the system, either a foster family, adoptive family or orphanage.

"Child Services couldn't hold him." Sonny reached the bottom drawer and crouched down, going through the hanging files one by one. "Kept running away, coming back here to town. Finally, they asked me if I could take him on, and he's been here ever since."

"Where was his mom buried?" Sam asked.

"Wasn't much left to be buried," Sonny said, making a face as he closed the drawer and stood up. "There was a fire and it hit the petrol tank, blew most of it to bits. She was identified by dental records and they looked for any other family, but couldn't find any." He leaned back against the cabinet, tilting his head back. "I think her remains were released about three months ago, she might be buried in one of the boneyards in town."

"How many are there?"

"Well, we got about four religions in the area, so each one's got their own," Sonny said, turning back to look accusingly at the filing cabinets. "I don't know where the hell that file's got to."

* * *

><p>Dean walked across the grassed area toward the garden, seeing four of the boys hoeing along the rows of plants.<p>

"You guys seen Frank or Timmy?" he asked, stopping by the garden fence.

The oldest-looking boy looked at him. "Who's asking?"

"I am," Dean said mildly, his expression flattening out to a cold stare.

"Fra–"

"Sst," the boy next to him hissed, leaning on his hoe and staring insolently at Dean. "We don't know anything."

The corner of Dean's mouth quirked up a little. "Wouldn't brag about it."

"Frank chased Timmy down to the river," a younger boy on the other side of the patch said, and Dean saw his gaze cut away as the two older boys glared at him.

"Which way?"

The boy pointed across the fields. He looked back at the kid, then around the other three.

"The hell's wrong with you?" he asked, brows drawing together. "This place is safe, it beats the hell out of the alternatives, why can't you stick together?"

"Don't need to hang out with weirdo kids, mister."

"You're _all_ weirdo kids," he snapped back at him. "Every single one of you, every single one of _us_, had something wrong, something go wrong and it changed everything. You know what's out there? A shitload of pain and no one around to clean it up, make it all better. You gotta do that. And you can't do it alone."

"What would you know?" the oldest boy said, his voice shaking a little under the belligerent tone.

"'Cause I was here, and nothing's changed," Dean answered, looking around at them. "You got each other – and Sonny, looking out for you. That's it."

He swung away, teeth clamping shut on the words that had wanted to come out, lengthening his stride and using the fence post to vault the first fence. Maybe they hadn't been here long enough, he told himself, maybe there weren't enough of them. There'd been dissension, when he'd been here. A few fights, pecking order established, but none of those kids had deliberately singled out any other kid, singled them out and driven them out. Each one had learned that sooner or later, you had to stand up for yourself, figure out what was important and get on with it. And they'd learned it was a lot easier to do it with someone at your back, someone you could trust, than doing it on your own.

He jumped the last fence and his feet took him down to the river without thought, following the path he didn't really remember and couldn't ever forget.

* * *

><p><em><strong>1995. Hurleyville, New York.<strong>_

_In a tree by the brook, there's a songbird who sings,  
>Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.<em>

The note died away in the silence of the room and Dean looked at Robin, the corner of his lip caught between his teeth as he waited for her verdict.

"That's amazing," she said, looking at the guitar. "You must've been practising every day."

He ducked his head, shrugging. "Still got the next bit to learn," he said, lifting a hopeful brow at her.

"I like your voice," she said, pulling her guitar onto her lap. "You should sing more often."

He snorted. "Can't make most of the notes."

"Pick a song that you can," she told him, playing the next set of chords, fingers flickering over the strings as she picked out the melody.

"Hey, slow down."

"And here I thought you were fast," she said, looking at him from beneath long lashes with a slow smile.

It turned him inside-out, that smile, that look, and he thought of the place he'd found, down by the river, wondering if she'd go there with him.

The music filled the room, filled everything, and he watched her fingers, following them on the strings of the instrument he held.

* * *

><p><em><strong>2013. Hurleyville, New York<strong>_

"Tim! Timmy?!"

The river looked smaller than he remembered, twisting between wide banks, the water glittering in the sunshine as it slid silently over and between the rocks.

"HELP!"

Dean's head snapped around and he was running, ducking under branches, jumping over logs, following the bank mostly, swearing as his boots slid on the mossy, rotten debris the winter storms had left along his path. He slowed as he came to the bend where the old cabin was, the auto in his hand, scanning the woods around the dilapidated building.

"Timmy!"

"No, help me, please!"

The voice wasn't the young boy's, and Dean ran to the steps at the side of the cabin, kicking open the door and looking around as he crossed from the brightly-lit clearing into the gloomy room.

On the floor, an older boy, Frank, he guessed, was struggling, his breath coming out in clouds of white. He saw the iron bar, lying crookedly by the stone hearth and rolled across the floor to it, grabbing it, sweeping it up and around in a single movement, the cold and the amorphous shape over the kid disappearing together.

"You alright?" he barked at Frank, grabbing a handful of the boy's jacket and hauling him to his feet.

"I-I – it was choking me!" Frank gasped out, shivering violently. Dean looked around and saw the misty shape again, stepping forward and swinging the bar, feeling it dissipate as the metal touched it and ran it through.

"Can you walk?" he said over his shoulder, pivoting in place, eyes probing the gloom for any movement.

"Y-y-yeah."

"Stay behind me."

They backed out of the cabin, and Dean looked around the sunlit clearing between the building and the river cautiously.

"Where's Timmy?"

"I don't know!" Frank croaked, his fingers feeling his neck gingerly. "He ran off when I got knocked down."

Dammit, Dean thought in frustration. He couldn't go looking for him and leave the kid here. And he was wary of sending the boy back through the woods on his own, given that the ghost had been halfway to killing him.

"Timmy!"

A bird took off from the branches nearby and man and boy jumped together.

"Come on, we gotta get out of here," Dean decided reluctantly. "We get back to the house and then I'll look for Timmy."

Frank looked at his feet, nodding and Dean's eyes narrowed. "What the hell were doing here with him?"

"I wanted to scare him," Frank told him. "That's all, I swear. He just creeps me out, always sneaking around –"

"Or trying to avoid assholes like you," Dean cut him off sourly. "Get moving."

He gestured to the path leading up to the fields impatiently, watching him walk slowly ahead and glanced back over his shoulder at the cabin. A lot worse for wear, he thought. It hadn't been nearly as bad when he'd been here.

_When they'd been here._

* * *

><p><em><strong>1995. Hurleyville, New York.<strong>_

"Wait, stop," Robin said, her hands sliding down his shoulders and pushing him back. "I'm sorry, I am, truly, but I just don't think I can."

Dean lifted his head, thought mired in the aching heat that suffused him, and dragged himself back as he saw her worried expression, her hair lit to fire in gentle light of the single candle.

"S'okay," he managed to get out, rolling onto an elbow and taking a deeper breath. "S'okay."

Robin sat up, pulling the thin blanket around herself, shaking her head at him. "I – I want to, it's not that," she said, uncertainly.

His pulse was slowing, leaving only a deep, throbbing tension as he heard the doubt in her voice and forced himself to sit up. "Hey, it's fine," he said more firmly.

She talked when she was nervous, he knew, and she shut up when she was scared, and the silence stretched out between them as he tried to think of anything he could say to make it seem less like a big deal.

"Only another week before the judge gets back," she said, trying to say it lightly but her voice wobbling on the last words, and he suddenly knew what she was thinking, why she was scared.

Sonny had drawn him aside the day before, told him that if he wanted to stay, he'd be welcome. He hadn't known how to respond to that, a rush of conflicting emotions filling him and he'd nodded mutely, turning away and getting back under the pick up to finish tightening the pan nut.

He'd spent the night, tossing and turning in the narrow bed between Trip and Ross, hearing the night sounds of the others, snores and coughs and the occasional bed-fart, his eyes open and staring into the dark, his thoughts chasing themselves around in his head like a pack of hysterical dogs.

This place had given him a lot. A look at a different life, an idea of a different life. A normal life, he'd acknowledged slowly, one that had no monsters, no things in the dark that could come into a house and destroy a family. The others, his friends, were there because other things had broken their homes, jealousy and drugs and the still confusing motivations of the adults in their lives. They'd lost parents, some had lost their siblings, a couple had lost their hope entirely. It still wasn't the same as what his life had been. And wasn't … here.

But that was only half the story, he knew. The other half was his family.

_Protect your brother._

He'd tried. He'd never needed to be told to do it, he'd've done it anyway. Sometimes, he'd fucked it up. At those times, when his father had looked at him, he'd felt the crushing weight of a shame too great to face and he'd tried not to see it, tried to bury it. But there were other times, when he'd hunted with his father, sometimes with Caleb, sometimes with Jim. And those times, he'd felt a sense of … rightness … to what they did, a powerful and all-encompassing sense that he was where he belonged, with them, hunting down the things that hid in the night.

_We save people, Dean, save them from the world behind the world, the shadows that prey on the weak, on people who can't protect themselves._

He'd been eleven, he thought, when his father had said that to him. The resonance had sunk into his bones and down to the marrow and he'd known then that no matter how hard it was, how hard it got, what they did, what he was learning to do, meant something. It meant something real.

"Are you still mad at your dad?" Robin asked him softly.

The stab of pain was there and gone and he shook his head. "None of this was his fault, Robin. You were there, you saw me make those choices."

She ducked her head, resting her cheek against her forearms. "Do you miss them? Your dad and your brother?"

He nodded, his throat closing without warning. "Yeah, every day."

"I kind of thought you didn't like your life," she said, the question not quite a question.

He stretched out his legs, twisting around and lying down again. "I guess I kind of did too," he admitted, looking at the cob-webbed rafters above him. "There are things that I wish – I wish like hell – were different," he continued slowly. "Things I wish hadn't happened."

"Is this … is this one of them?"

Turning his head, he looked at her, his face twisting up as he saw her expression and he almost jacknifed upright. "No, god, no, Robin. This is – you're – no, this is not one of those things."

"But we're not … I mean," she said, looking away. "this isn't going to last, is it?"

He couldn't tell her he was staying. Couldn't say what it was that he felt. He stared at her helplessly.

"I want it to," he got out finally, the last word forced out on a deep exhale. That was the truth, whole and unvarnished. It just wasn't … enough, he thought, turning away and closing his eyes.

There was a whispering hiss and the mattress dipped a little next to him. He opened his eyes to find her kneeling next to him.

"I guess we'll have make the most of what we've got, right?" she whispered, leaning forward to brush her lips over his. For a heartbeat, he wasn't sure of what she meant, then the kiss deepened and her fingers slid down his chest and every feeling and sensation magnified in the quiet, gold-lit room, sweeping thought aside and drowning him.

It could've been seconds or minutes or hours later, when she pulled back a little from him, huge, dark eyes looking into his.

"I'm shaking," she said, and he could feel her trembling against him. "I haven't – this is …"

He nodded, his arms tightening around her. "Makes two of us," he said against her neck.

* * *

><p><em><strong>2013. Hurleyville, New York<strong>_

Dean paced across the office floor, his scowl getting deeper. He stopped abruptly in the middle of the room as Sam finished.

"You think Timmy's causing this?" he demanded, looking at his brother. "An eight year old kid? That's the wrong age for poltergeist action, Sam."

"I know," Sam said appeasingly. "I don't think it's him doing it."

"His mom?"

"It's possible," Sam said, getting up and walking around the desk. "She was there, and not all her remains were destroyed. She has a good reason to protect her son."

Dean shook his head. "Against Jack? Or Ruth?"

"You said that the old man was pretty free and easy with his threats, maybe she didn't know he was all bark?"

"I found the file," Sonny said, coming into the room and brandishing the manila folder in one hand. "It was in Ruth's room, cops must've missed it."

"What the hell was it doing there?"

"Ruth seemed to have figured out that Timmy was at the centre of this before we did," Sonny said heavily. He handed to the file to Dean. "I don't know what that stuff she was doing."

Flipping open the file, Dean looked at the pages of handwritten notes and drawings that had been shoved in between the pages, Sam leaning over his shoulder.

"Protections wardings?" he asked, his forehead wrinkling up as he turned one of the pages over.

"Kind of Catholic for that, wasn't she?" Dean frowned, looking at Sonny.

"She went to the church, prayed a lot … with the rosary," Sonny said with a slight shrug. "Other than that, I didn't know her real well, I mean, not personal like."

"She knew enough about this to have figured out the right way to limit the ghost's movements," Sam said.

"I guess it was enough to set it off, make it decide to take her out," Dean agreed. "Alright, we got to find Timmy."

"Do you think he knows … about her, Dean?" Sam asked, looking at him.

"I don't know." He thought about the couple of encounters he'd had with the boy and shook his head. "It didn't seem like it. You and Sonny take the farm and watch each other's backs. I'll take the house."

He turned on his heel and headed for the kitchen, and Sonny looked after him, a bemused half smile lifting his mouth.

"He knows what's he doing, don't he?"

Sam looked at him and gestured to the hall door. "You have no idea. He's the best there is."

* * *

><p>He heard the car engine outside and ignored it, climbing up to the attic and searching the rooms, murmuring a quiet and he hoped, reassuring, patter aimed at the kid he was looking for as he looked in the closets, footlockers, under the beds and behind the doors.<p>

Walking past the bed he'd had, still in the same place, the pentacles still carved into the posts, he slowed as he noticed the tape on the floor beside it.

_Sam_. He'd known he'd have to tell his brother more than he had about this place, this time. He had the feeling Sam would've been digging around on his own as well. It hadn't been because his father had told him to keep it secret that he'd never told his brother. It hadn't even been because he'd felt the tug of a different life, of not being with them, of leaving them. It'd been only that the eights weeks he'd spent here had been the only thing he'd had of his own. The only thing that'd belonged just to him.

"Timmy? It's Dean," he called out quietly, moving away from the bed and pulling away from the memories that were too present here in this house, too ready to drag him down.

* * *

><p>He'd just finished searching the second floor when he heard the music, freezing at the top of the stairs, each crystal note on the steel strings hitting him, reaching into and through him.<p>

In his mind, he also heard the flute and the slightly croaky voice of the singer, a little more distantly, but it was the delicate picking that played him. He never listened to the song anymore if he could help it, those notes cut into him too easily.

At the doorway to the living room, he heard the whispered slide of a nail along the string as the woman sitting on the sofa changed chords, and he leaned back against the wall, closing his eyes.

_He couldn't breathe, and every breathless shudder passed through him like an electrical charge, a thunderstorm that kept on building, the discharges sheeting along his nerves in white fire, pulling an aching yearning that hurt his chest. And when she lifted under him, her back arching and a whistling moan escaping her, he couldn't help the answering groan that seemed to come out by itself, lost in a maelstrom of heat and pressure and waves of intense sensation._

_One arm was wrapped tightly under her back as they rocked together and he tasted the sweat on her skin under his lips as she pulled him deeper and closer still. Far off, somewhere distant in his mind, the memories of her fingers shifting across the fret, the mournful slide of the electric guitar's extended notes accompanying his pounding heart, the ragged huffs of breath on his neck, his emotions getting caught in the music and the music tangled inside the sensations that ricocheted through him._

_He couldn't leave. Didn't want to. Ever._

But he had, he thought, opening his eyes as the guitar trailed off and his memory let go of him. He wiped a hand over his face and stepped into the doorway.

Robin looked up at him, her hands still curled in position on the guitar's neck, and over the strings. "Oh hey, what happened to you at the diner? I turned around to take your order and you were just, uh, gone."

Swallowing, Dean looked a little beyond her, trying to shake off the past. "Long story, uh, have you seen Timmy?"

She glanced away, lifting a shoulder in a shrug. "No, not yet, but he should be here any minute for his guitar lesson," she said, looking back down at the instrument.

"Yeah, we're gonna cancel that," he told her brusquely, glancing back into the hall and taking a step into the room.

"What?"

"We've got to get out of here, okay?" he added, walking toward her, keeping his gaze on the guitar because looking right at her was not getting any easier. "I don't have time to explain, you just gotta trust me."

"Trust you?" she said. He looked up at the acerbic tone in her voice, and she looked away, shaking her head. "And why would I do that again?"

It took him a few seconds to register what she'd said. "You do remember me."

"How could I forget?"

That painful honesty in her voice hurt a lot worse than her apparent indifference, he discovered. "There are reasons that I had to leave – I don't have time now to explain them right now. I gotta get you out of here," he told her, striding forward and grabbing her wrist, hauling her off the sofa.

"Hey! Wait a min –" Robin yanked back against him as he reached the doorway and he tightened his grip. The front door slammed shut in front of him and behind him, Robin was still pulling back.

"I'm sorry."

Dean turned around to see Timmy standing in the hall, bruises livid on his wrists and forearms.

"Timmy? What hap –" Robin asked, staring at his arms as she started toward him.

"Sorry about what, Timmy?" Dean cut her off, dragging her back as he stepped forward and in front of her.

"She's mad now. At all of you," Timmy said, looking at the floor. Dean saw his breath mist out white. "I can't stop her."

"Timmy –"

From the end of the hall, something flew through the air toward him and he ducked automatically, the ceramic jar smashing into the wall behind him.

"Go, go, go," he said, pushing Robin ahead of him into the living room. Everything in the sparsely furnished room became a missile, and Robin ducked and weaved to the dining room, her hand flying to her face as a shard of a light bulb nicked her as she ran.

Beside the open hearth, the fire-irons were neatly racked, and Dean veered to his right, grabbing one and pivoting around, swinging the long iron bar behind him. He dropped his shoulder as a lamp rocketed from a side table, narrowly missing him and almost exploding as it hit the far wall.

In the open kitchen, he saw the back door open, his brother appearing in the doorway. "Sam – no!"

Sam had already stepped through when the door was jerked from his hand and slammed shut behind him, Dean and Robin running into the kitchen toward him.

"Dammit!" Dean looked at the door and turned to the cupboards, the salt where his memory told him it would be, a small white box. He tossed it to Sam.

"Circle."

"Dean – wha – what just happened in there?" Robin looked up at him, her pulse thumping against the base of her throat, her hands shaking then closing into fists to stop it.

His gaze snapped from Sam to her impatiently, the irritation vanishing instantly as he saw blood trickling down the side of her face, his jaw tightening at the raw fear in her eyes.

"Okay," Dean said, walking to the perimeter of the circle his brother was pouring out and looking down at her. "Listen, I can't give you a straight answer right now –" he said, gesturing vaguely toward the dining room. "but this is important, Robin, whatever happens, you stay inside the circle, you understand?"

She nodded, looking down at the line of white crystals that surrounded them.

"Dean," Sam said softly, closing the circle and standing up. Dean turned to the door, seeing Timmy standing there, his action figure clutched tightly between his hands.

"She won't listen to me," Timmy said, his voice barely audible.

"Your mom?" Dean asked, walking toward him slowly and dropping to one knee in front of him. He looked at Bruce. "She give you that, Timmy?"

Timmy nodded.

"Do you know where's she buried, Timmy?" Sam asked gently. The little boy nodded again.

"The Blessed Mary," he said, looking at Sam. "Behind it."

Dean pulled the keys from his pocket and threw them at Sam. "Try the door now, and take Robin with you."

"It'll come after me," Sam said, looking worriedly at the girl in the circle.

"I don't think so," Dean told him, his gaze fixed on Timmy. "She just wants to protect you, doesn't she?"

"She did," Timmy said uncertainly.

"Go Sam, take Robin," Dean snapped, and Sam held out his hand to Robin, pulling her through the door and down the back stairs.

Timmy looked up at him. "Why does she want to hurt you? Or Mrs Davis?"

Dean frowned a little at the name and Timmy's gaze shifted to the back door. Mrs Davis, he thought, his breath stumbling in his chest. Right.

"She did protect you, Timmy, but she's not alive any more and sometimes, if someone stays here when they're not supposed to, they get angry," he said to the boy, feeling an eddy of cold air drift around the kitchen. "She doesn't mean to get that angry, she can't help it but it's going to get worse, the longer she's around."

"Can you stop her?"

"Maybe," he hedged, thinking that if Sam got to the cemetery and burned her remains that would do the trick. "But you can. She's holding on here because you want her to stay."

Timmy lifted his gaze doubtfully. "I can't make her do anything."

Dean felt the cold again, close by his left shoulder and he dropped to one knee, trying to keep his focus on the boy.

"You can tell her you love her," he said, shifting a little as cold fingers seemed to slide down the back of his neck. "Tell you're ready to move on, and she needs to too."

The fingers were there, he realised, just the tips against his skin. He tensed, his hand closing more tightly around the fire-iron and swung around as he felt them drive into him.

The ghost dissipated with the power of the iron, and he leaned on his hand, coughing as the cold slowly left his lung.

"She doesn't want to go," Timmy whispered, looking down at him. "She wants to stay."

"I know," Dean said. "But she can't. She's killing people."

* * *

><p>Sam followed Robin's terse instructions through the tree-lined streets, and pulled up in front of the small wooden church with a screech, out of the door almost before the car'd stopped moving.<p>

"Stay there," he yelled at her as he pulled the shovel from the trunk and grabbed the gear bag, hearing the distinctive squeak of the passenger door. "You need to stay here."

"Wha–why?"

"Just stay here," Sam ground out, no more time for explanations as he ran clumsily through the narrow lych gate, swinging the shovel around to avoid the gate-posts and bolting down the side of the church.

The headstone was the newest in the small cemetery and he checked the name. The earth had gone in months ago, but the recent rain the county'd had meant it wasn't hard and it wasn't compacted by years of remaining undisturbed. The shovel bit in deep and he dug furiously, throwing the clods of turf aside and pulling out heavy loads of soil as he got deeper.

"What are you doing?"

His head snapped around to see Robin standing at the edge of the rapidly emptying grave, her expression shocked and edged with horror.

"Timmy's mother isn't at rest," he said shortly between shovel-loads. "We can burn and salt her remains, set her free of them and she move on."

For a moment, he thought she'd left, and he cast a flickering glance over his shoulder. She was still there, standing silently.

"So … there's an afterlife."

"Yeah."

"And you know how to help souls … uh … spirits, ghosts, to get there?"

"I know how it sounds," he said tiredly, pushing down with his foot to get the shovel blade in deeper. "But yeah."

The metal tip of the blade hit something hard and he scraped the soil back from the small coffin, tossing it out as he cleared the top enough to prise off the lid. He heard Robin's gasp and ignored it, turning and reaching for the butane and box of salt, tipping the entire canister over the blackened and charred bones that were all the coroner's office had been able to retrieve from the wreck.

"Sam –"

Looking up, Sam threw the empty containers onto the ground next to the grave and clambered out. Robin was staring at the corner of the church and he saw a whirlwind forming there, picking up leaves and grass and moving toward them.

"Get behind me," he told her, pulling out a matchbook from his jacket pocket.

He threw his arm up over his face as the wind roared toward and around him, coating him in dirt, scratching and clawing at him. He heard Robin's scream behind him and dropped to the ground, eyes almost closed as he lit the match, tucked it into the book and dropped it into the grave.

* * *

><p>Dean sucked in a deep breath as the hands that had been rifling through his internal organs vanished, opening his eyes to see Timmy leaning over him, his face drawn.<p>

"Are you alright?"

Nodding, and wincing at the pain that rattled with the movement, Dean rolled onto his elbow and pushed himself onto his knees. The iron bar was halfway across the kitchen, lying on the floor, and he had a vague recollection of being lifted and slammed into the ceiling before he was thrown into the big dresser against the wall, broken plates and glasses scattered around him and the boy.

Sonny burst in through the back door, his eyes widening as he took in the man and boy on the floor and the smashed up contents of his kitchen surrounding them. He opened his mouth to say something and closed it abruptly, and Dean followed his gaze instantly, seeing the greyish, diaphanous shape thickening by the dining room wall.

_I can't stay._

The words weren't words and Dean was pretty damned sure he hadn't heard them with his ears. It was a feeling, a collection of impressions that made a whole, as fine and impermanent as a cobweb, regret and the faint smell of flowers, and a hint of sorrow.

"I know," Timmy said, getting to his feet and looking at it. "That's alright."

_I love you._

That was stronger. Dean breathed in the scent of a baby's hair, a towering strength and gentle touch, a fragment of a song heard a long, long time ago.

"I can do this, Mom, on my own," the boy said, taking a step closer. "I love you too, I want you to be happy too."

The late afternoon sun dropped below the level of the eaves and inched into the kitchen, filling it incrementally with a soft, golden light. He saw Timmy's eyes close as the figure flared at its touch, burning brightly for a second and then gone, the kitchen filled with the scent of a light, floral perfume that faded a moment later.

"Holy crap," Sonny breathed, staring at Dean.

"Yeah, not so much holy," Dean replied sourly, sweeping away the glass fragments before he rolled onto his knees and got to his feet. He touched the back of his head gingerly and looked at the blood on the end of his fingertips.

"Is she happy now?" Timmy asked, turning around to look at him.

"Happier," Dean qualified. "She let go. So did you."

He felt Sonny's look sharpen on him for a moment, then the older man picked up a broom and starting sweeping the floor.

* * *

><p><em><strong>1995. Hurleyville, New York<strong>_

The suit hung on the closet knob, and he stared at it, wondering what the hell it had to do with him. On the bed beside him, the boxed corsage sat mutely accusing. He hadn't picked it for the prettiest flowers or the most expensive, but because the leaves had been the closest he could find to the colour of her eyes. And Sonny had said that the flowers would go with whatever dress she was wearing.

But it felt like he was acting, acting normal, acting like any other guy taking a girl to a dance at a school he didn't even go to, just … acting.

At the back of his mind was the smell and the sound and the feel of the Impala. Gun oil and solvent. Whiskey and the pervasive, comforting scent of his father's coat. Sam's perpetual grumblings from the back seat. The deep timbre of his father's voice, laying out the parameters of a hunt or asking him if he'd finished cleaning the guns or telling Sammy to take his damned feet off the arm of the couch.

He closed his eyes and saw graveyards in the moonlight, rows of salt-packed shells, the bright explosion of butane or gasoline catching fire in the bottom of a hole. He'd broken ten bones and had eight scars, some long and twisting, others short and deep, over his body. Robin had seen them, had traced her fingertip along them but she didn't know where they'd come from because he couldn't tell her those things.

But they were a part of him. A part of his life, his memories, his history.

And, he realised on a slowly indrawn breath, if he turned away from those things, it wasn't just his family he was betraying. It was himself.

He looked up as the bedroom door opened, Sonny peering around the edge. He saw his gaze go to the suit and flick back to him.

"You're not dressed?"

"I'm not going," Dean said quietly, looking at the floor. "Dad called an hour ago. He'll be here soon."

"Charges were dropped?"

Dean nodded.

"I'm gonna miss you, kid," Sonny said, walking into the room and sitting on the bed opposite. "You could stay, if you want to."

He felt his mouth twist up to one side, his throat thicken. "Thanks, but no, I can't." He looked around the room and back to Sonny. "This, this was a great dream, and I'll never forget it, you know that, right?" He waited until Sonny nodded. "But, at the very bottom of it all, it's not – I have things I need to do."

"Sometimes, Dean, you have to do what's right for you, even if it hurts the people you love."

Dean nodded. "Yeah, that's exactly right."

Sonny shifted a little as he realised the boy had turned what he'd meant around, his chest tightening as he registered what Dean had said. "You sure?"

"I didn't tell you about what happened to us," he said, his head cocking slightly as he heard something in the distance. "I can't, but it changed everything. Changed it for good, you know. Forever. I'm not – this isn't my life. It never will be."

Sonny looked down at the floor. "I told your dad that you could stay here, if you wanted to," he said, a little uncomfortably.

Dean felt his breathing cease momentarily, wondering what the hell Dad had said to that. "What'd he say?"

"He said it was your choice," Sonny told him, looking up. "Said if you wanted to, he wouldn't get in the way."

Everything he'd thought, before, crumbled into dust. _His choice_. After a moment, he thought his father had been right. It was, and he'd made it. If he'd wanted anything else, it wouldn't have matter if John Winchester had opposed it or not.

The noise in the distance was familiar. And it was time. "Tell Robin, I'll write, okay? I'll explain everything."

He wanted to tell Sonny to tell her a lot more than that, but he couldn't make it come out and he thought he needed her to hear it from him anyway.

Sonny nodded, getting up as he heard the engine. "You ever have trouble, Dean, any kind, and you come here."

Dean got up and leaned over to pick up the small backpack that held the few clothes he'd acquired. In the moment when he straightened and turned to face him, Sonny saw him change from a boy to the man he'd become, his face expressionless, his eyes calm and assessing. The moment was gone when he grinned and gave him a one-armed hug, but he'd seen it, he knew he had.

"Thanks, don't think I won't take you up on that if it comes to it," Dean told him.

They walked down the stairs as the car pulled up out the front, his father a shadow in the deeper shadows of the interior, unmoving. Sam was back at Blue Earth, he knew.

He hesitated for a moment on the porch, looking toward the small town, hidden from here in the darkness, and his throat closed up tight. Nodding at the man standing beside him, Dean walked down the steps and to the car, pulling the passenger door open and tossing his bag into the back seat. He slid in and closed the door, the engine rumbling impatiently and growling as the driver pulled away, scattering gravel from the tyres.

_There's a feeling I get when I look to the west,  
>And my spirit is crying for leaving.<em>

* * *

><p><em><strong>1995. I-90 W, Indiana<strong>_

"Guy who was looking after you said you did alright there."

The silence had been near-total for more than six hours, Dean thought tiredly, and now his father wanted to talk about it.

"The work wasn't hard," he answered the non-question as best as he could.

"Jim fill you in on what we told Sam?"

"Yessir," he confirmed. He wasn't sure why the story had been needed, to save him or his father from the possible embarrassment?

"You had a date tonight."

Another non-question. "Yessir."

"I'm sorry you missed it."

Dean wasn't sure if his father was or wasn't. The choice, again, had been his. Made freely enough, although like so many others, it'd left a long, open wound inside of him, one that was going to keep hurting for awhile.

He saw his father turn his head to look at him in his peripheral vision, keeping his eyes on the lit road ahead of them. He wondered suddenly if his father had left him there so that he could make a choice, instead of just following the path that'd been in front of him, so that he could see a different life and what it had to offer. He slid a surreptitious glance sideways, learning nothing from the expressionless profile.

_Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run  
>There's still time to change the road you're on.<br>And it makes me wonder._

* * *

><p><em><strong>2013. Hurleyville, New York.<strong>_

Sam put the shovel back in the trunk, and pulled out the medic kit. "Sit down, Robin."

She sat obediently on the back seat, the car's light showing the bruising at the side of her face. He opened the kit and cleaned the dirt away, lifting a hand to tilt her head a little to the side. The ghost had thrown her away from the grave-side, and she'd hit the ground pretty hard, he thought, but it was just a bruise, nothing else.

"So, you knew my brother when he was here?" he asked her, keeping the tone light.

"Yeah, my mom taught guitar at Sonny's, I went along." She rubbed her fingertips along her brow. "This is what you two do? Dean used to call it the family business."

Sam snorted. "Yeah."

He put the kit in the trunk and she went around to the passenger door, getting in. He could feel her gaze as he slid behind the wheel and he looked over at her curiously.

"Why'd you pretend you didn't remember him, at the diner?" he asked, starting the car and pulling out.

"Um, shock, I guess," she said, a little uncomfortably. "He was right – I didn't think I'd ever see him again."

He got the sense that she wanted to tell someone and he waited, driving with a casual slowness back toward the farm.

"The night he left, we were supposed to go to a dance – a school dance," she continued after a moment's silence. "When he didn't show, and I didn't hear anything else, I … uh …"

Sam nodded. Their father had always had impeccable timing in that way. "So you were pretty close?"

She made a noise in her throat, and he couldn't tell if it was a laugh or something else.

"Yeah, I thought so," she told him, her tone self-deprecating. "I was so in love with him, I thought it was forever."

Sam hid his shock at her admission, staring at the road ahead of them. An almost normal life, with people surrounding him who'd cared about him, he thought. He was beginning to understand why his brother hadn't talked about this.

The farm came into view too quickly, and he drove through the gate and parked in front of the house.

* * *

><p>Dean walked through the house, aware he was trying to fix certain things into memory. He came out onto the porch and saw Robin, leaning against the rail at the end, his mouth lifting in a slight one-sided smile as she turned and saw him.<p>

"You alright?"

She shook her head, shrugging. "No, but yeah, I will be. Is Timmy?"

"He will be," he echoed her words and stopped beside her, looking down into her face, fixing her features against the memories he had. "I'm sorry."

She looked away. "Sonny said you were going to write, but you never did."

He nodded. "I tried to, about a million times," he said, his gaze dropping to her hand on the rail. There was a ring there now, a plain gold band on her ring finger.

"Couldn't figure out how to make it come out right," he continued, drawing in a deep breath. "I didn't want to leave, but at the same time, aside from you, there wasn't anything that I could stay for."

She kept her gaze fixed outward, on the dark fields and the distant lights. "I looked for you, for a long time," she said quietly. "About eight years ago, I stopped."

Turning to look up at him, she made a slight face. "The news was full of Dean Winchester, a murderer in St Louis, killed by the cops."

Dean rubbed a hand over his face. "That wasn't me –"

"Obviously," she retorted, a little tartly. "What happened to you?"

The question surprised a short, humourless laugh out of him. "A lot," he said, inadequately. "What we do, me and Sam, and my Dad, before he died …" he hesitated for a moment then shook his head. He couldn't explain it, couldn't fill in the gaps, and he acknowledged with a faint feeling of sadness that he didn't want to. They'd been close, closer than he'd ever imagined was possible, but that had been then, and there was no way to recapture it, no way to get back. "There's a lot more than just ghosts and we try to save people, protect them."

Looking at her hand again, he let his fingers brush over it. "You got married."

"Four years ago," she said, looking back at him. "He's a good man."

"And you took over the family business," he said, lifting a brow at her.

She smiled. "And I love it, who knew?" She returned the light brush of fingertips over his hand. "You still play?"

He looked at the car and shook his head. "No room for a guitar."

"That's a shame," she told him. "It's a good way to lose yourself, when you need to."

* * *

><p><em><strong>I-80 W, New York<strong>_

Dean drove steadily, his thoughts randomly touching on the past, on the present, his hands and feet handling wheel, pedals and traffic automatically.

"You know," Sam said, turning a little in the seat beside him. "I thought I was gonna find out that was one of the worst experiences of your life, and it turned out that it was one of the best."

Keeping his gaze on the road, Dean shrugged.

"Sonny told me what Dad said," Sam continued, his eyes narrowing on his brother. "Why didn't you stay?"

He wasn't going to let go of it, Dean thought, repressing the urge to shove something into the stereo and turn the volume up high.

"I didn't want to," he answered. It was mostly the truth. "Sam, it was just two months, that's all. And it didn't change anything."

"But –"

He shook his head impatiently. "No one twisted my arm, Sam."

There wasn't anyone stopping him from peeling out right now, either, he realised. Well … not right now, because Sam had to be a hundred percent before he could, but the job was what keeping him here. The good of the many and the responsibility that came with being able to do it. Not because there was no choice. There was always a choice and he'd accepted the consequences of his decisions for a long time.

"Don't you want anything for yourself, Dean?"

He glanced at Sam's face and back to the road. There were a lot of things he wanted for himself, he thought tiredly. But he couldn't pretend any more that he could turn away from everything that had made him who he was, and just act like none of it had happened, like none of it had meant anything.

He let out his breath. "I want to figure out how to get Heaven and Hell neutralised," he said with a shrug. "That's enough to go on with, don't you think?"

_And if you listen very hard  
>The tune will come to you at last.<br>When all are one and one is all  
>To be a rock and not to roll.<em>


	15. Chapter 15 Contracting Vows

**Chapter 15 Contracting Vows**

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

"What are you doing?"

Sam looked around at his brother's voice, his expression resigned as he saw Dean walk toward him carrying two cups. "Trying to filter out every known and natural or artificial EM signal clogging up the airwaves so I can find the angel frequencies."

He looked back at the screen in front of him, moving aside a pile of notes absent-mindedly as a cup of coffee was set down beside him. "Thanks."

"Why isn't Kevin working on this?" Dean sat at the table opposite his brother, looking at him over the rim of his cup.

"He's got enough to do with the tablets," Sam told him, typing in a new line of code as another anomaly was returned. "He did suggest hacking into the military satellites and borrowing their existing filtering and recognition systems."

"Huh."

"Yeah." He ran his hands through his hair and leaned back, picking up the coffee, trying to hide a yawn behind the cup. "Everyone seems to be laying low for the moment," he added, waving a hand toward the printer bins which were surprisingly unfilled for a change.

"That's not entirely a bad thing." Dean followed the gesture and shrugged. "You getting enough sleep?"

"Yeah, I–" Sam stopped talking as another yawn overtook him. "Uh, yeah, I don't, I didn't … I'm fine."

"Mmm, you look it," Dean said noncommittally.

"No, I – I just feel like my battery isn't recharging." Sam knuckled his eyes as the screen briefly blurred in front of him. "I'm getting sleep – just …"

"Not enough?"

"I don't think that's it." Sam looked down at his cup as he felt his brother's gaze sharpening on him.

"Maybe we should think –"

The high-pitched ring of Dean's phone cut him off and he pulled it out, watching Sam drink his coffee.

"Hello?"

"_Hey, Dean, Jody Mills_."

"Sheriff Mills – hang on, Sam's here too," he said, switching to speaker and setting the phone on the table between them.

"Jody?"

"_Hey, Sam_," the sheriff's voice came through loud and clear. "_Uh, I got a bit of an odd ball to pitch in your direction._"

"Shoot."

"_Small town I cover outside of Sioux Falls, only crime to speak of being the occasional cow tipping, then last week, four people go missing_."

Dean looked at the phone. "Alright. So, what makes you think this is our kind of weird?"

"_Well, witness said he saw someone lift an SUV to nab a girl last night_," Jody said, her tone dry.

Sam looked at Dean. "Reliable witness?"

"_Ah, well, that's the thing_," Jody hedged. "_Not all the time. This is more my gut telling me you two could be a help_."

"Where're you at?" Dean asked, and tipped up his cup, swallowing the last of the coffee.

"_Hartford, off the 90, north-west of Sioux Falls_," she replied quickly. "_Listen, thanks._"

"No problem, Jody," Sam said.

Dean picked up the phone and turned it off, looking at him. "You gonna be able to stay awake?"

"I'll try," Sam said sourly, getting up from the table.

* * *

><p><em><strong>US-81 N, Nebraska<strong>_

Dean caught his brother's scowl in his peripheral vision and flicked a glance at him. "What?"

"I don't remember getting into the car," Sam said, his gaze fixed through the windshield.

That, Dean thought with a slight chill, would be because Zeke had shut him out to give him an update. His brows drew together slightly. Up till now, Sam hadn't really noticed the blank spots, but the angel had been getting careless, taking over while his brother was moving sometimes, or moving things around him.

"Uh, maybe you're, um, micro-sleeping or whatever they call it?" he suggested.

"Maybe," Sam allowed, hunching into the corner of the car. "Dean … back in Toledo, in that raven's apartment …"

"Yeah?"

"I thought I heard you say to me 'Sam, he's gone'."

Dean thought fast back to the moment when he stepped back from the chair, looking at the dead vessel and acknowledging that the mind or frequency or whatever it was that had made the angel unique among angels, had moved on.

"I don't think so," he hedged. "Pretty sure I said 'I think he's gone.'"

"Couldn't you tell?"

"A dead human? Sure," Dean said, a bit more steadily now that they were back on safer ground. "A not-quite-human dead vessel of an angel without his angelic appendages? Not so much."

"Oh."

"What's going on?"

"I don't know," Sam said, shaking his head. "I feel like I'm missing things, missing time sometimes, missing chunks that should be there."

"You're tired," Dean offered cautiously. "Maybe it's just that memory fritz thing that happens when you get too run down?"

"Maybe."

"Got another four hours," he said, looking at Sam. "Might as well catch the z's while you can."

"Yeah."

Dean turned the stereo down a little, till the guitar sounded soft, and looked back at the road. What the hell was the angel doing, he wondered uncomfortably. It wasn't like he wasn't hanging by a thread with the lies as it was; now he had to try to remember moments of the last few weeks and come up with reasonable explanations for them that didn't contradict what he'd said back then?

He rubbed a hand absently over his face, noticing the faint tremble in his fingers as he set it back on the wheel. He was skydiving without a parachute here, and sooner or later he was gonna hit the ground.

He'd been crap at lying to his family from day one, uneasy at the breach of trust it implied, uncomfortable with having to hold things back when he knew he already withheld too much of himself.

_In the days of my youth, I was told what it means to be a man,  
>Now I've reached that age, I've tried to do all those things the best I can.<br>No matter how I try, I find my way into the same old jam. _

He looked at the stereo accusingly as Plant's voice thrummed from the speakers, reaching out to turn it down further, until it was just the guitar and drums he could hear and the words were muffled under the engine's rumble.

_Don't you want anything for yourself, Dean?_

Sam's question rose as he looked back at the road. What he wanted had been squashed down and ignored and crumpled up so many times he wasn't sure he could find it again. And it didn't matter, not really, because before he could think of that, there were things he had to do, had to take care of, things that he couldn't ignore.

Dragging in a deep breath and loosening the grip he had on the wheel, he forced his thoughts toward what could lift a big car off the ground. There were a few possibilities. As usual, angels were sitting on the top of the list, demons just underneath.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Santa Fe, New Mexico<strong>_

Rubbing a hand tiredly over his eyes, he looked at the laptop screen and picked up his pen, making a note of the site and the information it contained and jotting down the salient points. There were so many of them, he thought as he wrote, so goddamned many of them hiding in plain sight, laughing at the world.

He closed the screen when he finished writing, dropping the pen and staring at the notes that covered the table, spilled over to the chair beside him. Tipping his head back, he realised he'd been hunting them now for a little over a year and he had reams of information, facts, figures, locations even for some of the man who were not, strictly speaking, men, but had gotten no closer to finding a way to take them out for good.

The door opened, letting in a gust of frigid mountain air, and he glanced around at the figure who entered.

"He is close. We should go."

They'd found the magician two months ago, tracking first through thickets and tangles of financial information, then hacking through the airport data and the footage held across thousands of law-enforcement databases across the country. He used too many aliases to keep track of, had too many holes to disappear into but Aaron was positive that he'd been a part of the society.

"I need to upload this data to the firm," he told the creature standing by the door and waiting impatiently for him.

"Later."

The terse command triggered an emotion he'd been living with for too long.

"You could kill him!"

"No," the golem said. "He is more powerful than Eckart. We need to find a way to bind his power."

Slumping as the anger dissolved as suddenly as it'd appared, Aaron nodded resignedly. They'd killed two. And the last one had almost destroyed them both. Gathering up the loose pages and notebooks, his file and texts, he got to his feet and began to shove them into his bag.

At the door, the creature turned away, lifting the edge of the motel's curtain a little and staring into the night.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Hartford, South Dakota<strong>_

Sheriff Mills was waiting for them in the parking lot of the Emporio Diner and Dean got out of the car, smiling as he walked toward her.

"Sheriff," he said, looking down at her. "Layin' off the blind dates, I hope."

"Yeah, you betcha," Jody said, turning to Sam as he reached her and gave her a hug.

"Hey." He smiled, taking a step back as he released her.

"Hey yourself." She grinned back at him, handing Dean a police report file and turning to wave a hand at the lot. "So … the car was right over there, ass over tea-kettle."

It wasn't hard to see the location, witches hats marking out a rough circle of asphalt covered in plastic, glass and metal debris. A diner employee was sweeping ineffectually at the mess.

"Witness was sitting on the porch, there." She turned around and pointed to the bricked porch. "So he had a good enough view."

"And this matches up with the other missing persons how?" Dean asked, looking through the file.

"Well, four abductees now," she said, gesturing to the file. "Not quite the same MO at every scene. Common thread – they knew each other. And in each case, it was an impossible take."

Dean lifted an eyebrow as he passed the file to his brother. "Impossible – how?"

"First vic was a Pastor," Sheriff Mills said, looking at him. "Taken from his home, which sits behind the church he administered. Security cameras from the church show both entrances to his home, which were locked. Nothing on them. And we had to break in when a couple of his flock couldn't get hold of him. There was no sign of a fight, or a disturbance even, but we found scorch marks around the bedroom."

Shaking his head, Dean said, "Could've gotten through a window."

"They were locked and intact too." She gave him a wry smile.

"What about the second one?" Sam asked, leafing through the police reports. "A couple?"

Jody nodded. "Taken from a bedroom. Again, everything was locked. Engaged couple and they were in the girl's mother's house. The mother didn't see anything but there were scorch marks around the inside of the bedroom, and the window was torn out."

She looked over at the marked-off area again. "There were scorch marks over the paint of the car as well."

"You said they knew each other?" Dean looked past her to his brother. Sam shook his head, passing the file back to Jody.

"Yeah," Jody said. "All members of Good Faith church here." She set the files on the trunk of the Impala, gesturing vaguely toward the road. "My church in Sioux Falls was in a tizzy over it."

"Hmmm."

Jody turned to look at Dean. "What?"

"Didn't peg you for churchy," he said.

"Yeah, you know …" She smiled at him, seeing the slight doubt in his face. "… choking on a ladies' room floor 'cause of witchcraft, kind of makes a higher power seem relevant."

Dean shook his head. "Jody, you sure you're, uh, ready to get back into our, uh, particular kind of business?"

The smile disappeared as she looked up at him. "This wack-a-doo stuff keeps coming," she said firmly. "More I know, better armed I'll be."

Dean ducked his head, hiding a smile at her prosaic approach. From the minute they'd first met her, in the diner in Sioux Falls, she'd never been anything but matter-of-fact about whatever was threatening her people. And Sam had told him how she'd handled herself when her son had turned.

"Okay," Sam said, looking from Jody to Dean. "We have missing church folk and invisible assailant or assailants? Could be angels looking for vessels?"

Dean shrugged. "Could be –"

"Wha-wait – angels?" Jody stared at Sam. "You're joking!"

"Don't get your pants on fire," Dean said caustically. "They suck."

"Jody, there was a witness here?" Sam said quickly, glancing at Dean.

"Yeah," she said, picking up the files and tucking them under her arm. "More or less."

* * *

><p>The man who followed Sheriff Mills to the booth at the back of the diner was another one hanging on by his fingernails, Dean thought as he watched them slide into the other side of the banquette. Life had done something to him, beaten him to a pulp and left him swinging by himself. He swallowed uneasily. It was entirely too easy to see himself in that state if too many things went wrong at the same time.<p>

"'Kay, Slim, my friends here want to talk to you about the missing girl," Jody said.

Slim looked at them, bloodshot blue eyes wide. "Honor," he said, looking from Sam to Dean. "Her name was Honor. She was a nice girl. Always left me meatloaf."

"Slim, why don't you tell us what you saw that night?" Sam suggested, his fingers curling around his pen.

"Heard a scream, got woke," Slim said, his eyes losing focus for a moment. "I saw shadows, across the lot and the car started to rise, up into the air, like this."

Dean's eyes narrowed as the old man lifted his arms slowly above his head.

"Shadows?"

"They were people, I think," Slim said, the blue eyes refocussing on Dean. "But it was far away and just the streetlight and the lot light were on."

"More than one?" Sam frowned at him.

He nodded. "Was Honor was screaming, I saw her, for a second, under the car. Then BANG!"

Dean, Sam and Jody flinched back involuntarily from the man's shout, Dean's gaze cutting around the room uncomfortably as Slim continued.

"It was fire," he said, shaking his head a little, his voice low and soft again. "Like a – a pillar of fire, went straight under the car, from one side to the other and brighter than the sun."

Dean felt himself tense at the image. "Could you see then?"

Slim shook his head. "Too bright then. When it disappeared, I looked. Honor was gone, the people were gone. The car was still in the air, for maybe a half-second? Then it fell and rolled onto its side."

That was different, Dean thought, flicking a sideways look at his brother as he pulled out his wallet.

"The fire," Sam asked. "It was white?"

"No, it was yellow mostly," Slim said, brows drawing together a little uncertainly. "It had green and blue edges, like if you throw alcohol or gasoline on a regular fire, it shoots up, and changes colour."

"Anything else?" Dean asked.

"No," Slim said, then he looked up. "Wait, there was something, for a long time after, there was a smell, it –" He stopped, his forehead furrowing as he tried to think of how to describe it. "It was … on a hot day, in the middle of summer, when the ground gets hot enough to bake dry … it smelled like that, only under it, I could smell burning wood."

Sam's eyes narrowed as he turned away, trying to find any correlation in his memories of that kind of a smell – or mix of smells – and what he'd read or heard or seen.

Dean pulled a fifty from his wallet and slid it across the table to Slim. "Okay, well, Slim, thank you for your time."

Slim looked down at the fifty and covered it hesitantly with his own hand, making it disappear as he finished his coffee and stood up. He edged out of the booth then stopped, looking back at Dean.

"You find her," he said, his voice firming slightly. "She was a nice girl."

Dean looked at him and nodded. "We'll find her."

Sheriff Mills slid across to the middle of the seat as Slim turned away, looking curiously at Dean. She hadn't spent much non-killing, trying-not-to-get-killed time with him, not as much as she had with Bobby and Sam, at least, and she was starting to get the feeling there was quite a bit lurking beneath the cynicism he generally wore on the outside.

"So, no white light," Sam said.

"No angel," Dean agreed immediately, looking at Jody. "You talked to the victims' families?"

"Pastor Fred didn't have any that we could find," Jody said, leaning forward. "I've spoken to the mother of the engaged girl and my deputy, Frank, went to see Honor's parents straight after I heard from Slim."

"Okay, you said they were all part of the same church?" Dean asked, picking up his cup. "The families as well? Or just the vics?"

Jody frowned, shaking her head. "Barb Connor's mother goes to a different church. Why?"

Sam glanced at Dean, then back to the sheriff, following his brother's train of thought. "So far, the church seems to be the only common thread between them. I'll grant you that it doesn't sound witchcraft, but we can't rule out demons. Families might be targeted as well, if they were involved with the same stuff."

"I'll call Frank and see if he checked that," she promised. "What next?"

Dean smiled into his cup, his eyes cutting to the side at Sam. "Ready to get your worship on?"

Sam nodded. "We'll see if we can join the church," he said to Jody. "You gonna stay in town?"

"Yeah, I'm in it to the end, the station is covered."

"Where's this church at?" Dean asked.

* * *

><p>Buttoned-down, Dean thought as he watched Bonny Fuchco scurry around the office of the Good Faith church, gathering paperwork from various drawers and trays. Completely buttoned-down. He wondered absently if she'd ever worn lingerie in her life.<p>

"Well, I hope you enjoyed the tour," she said brightly, setting the forms on the desk and sitting in the chair opposite him and Sam, teeth flashing whitely again. She was attractive, in a … buttoned-down … kind of way. Long, vividly red hair was drawn tightly back from her face, oval and fair-skinned and with large, blue eyes that seemed to slip past actual eye contact most of the time. A slender figure with curves in the right places was accentuated by close-fitting black pants and a purple sweater over a white, collared shirt with very long cuffs. And pearls. Naturally.

"Any questions before we get you boys registered?" she chirped, and he dragged his attention back to what they were there for.

"Uh, yeah," Sam said, glancing at him. "Uh, look, um, Ms Fuchco –"

"Oh, please, Bonny'll do just fine," she interrupted, beaming at him.

"Bonny, okay," Sam said slowly. "We love the church, we do, but …" He stopped and looked at Dean worriedly. "… well, we've heard that a few members have gone missing? And to be honest, it kind of scares us."

Bonny's alert gaze shifted from Sam to Dean, and he offered her a small grimace, hoping it projected the sort of nervousness that might afflict two guys, both big and not exactly the wallflower type.

"Let me assure you," she said understandingly, emphasising her point with a hand quickly lifted and pressed over her heart. "With our increased security, Good Faith has never been safer." She looked from Dean back to Sam. "And those people who've gone missing? Well, they are front and centre in our prayers."

"What a relief," Dean gushed back at her. "Now, you must have been close to them?"

"Well," she admitted, looking down at the forms in front of her uncomfortably. "We do share the APU bond."

Dean felt his brows rising. "The APU?"

She smiled brightly at him. "Our chastity group," she explained, looking at Sam. "Abstinence Purifies Us."

Sam could feel the eye-roll of the man beside him and he leaned forward a little, hoping Bonny wouldn't notice.

"Oh," he said quickly. "Uh, you mind if we sit on that? See if it's for us?"

"I'm afraid it's members only," Bonny said, shaking her head. "I'm sorry but it can pretty personal and we've found that a commitment to the group promotes a feeling of security."

Sam nodded understandingly. "Then count us in!"

There was a feeling of heat on the side of his head, his brother's gaze lasering into him as he grinned at Bonny resolutely. Between them, no words were needed to cover the instantaneous argument both of them knew the other was raising.

Dean caught the look of surprise on Bonny's face as her smile switched from Sam to him, and he forced some kind of facsimile in response. He didn't need a group to maintain abstinence, he thought acerbically. He hadn't been –

"Well! I'll be a squirrel in a skirt!" she chirped happily, the phrase wiping out his thoughts with a vivid and peculiar image. He blinked as he watched her stand up and move around the desk.

"I'll be back in a jiff with the papers."

When she'd left the room, he let the smile drop, cheeks aching with the effort, and turned to his brother. "Chastity group?"

"Dean, look, if all the members were in APU then maybe whatever took them is stalking virgins?" Sam hissed back at him, annoyed that the argument even had to be raised. It wasn't the first time, he considered.

"And Slim said he saw fire – so what, you're thinking dragons?"

Sam's gaze slid past him, his brother's expression changing to pleasant enquiry as Dean heard Bonny walk up behind him.

"Alrighty …" she said, handing a clipboard, with a printed sheet and pen, to each of them. "Just sign there and your purification can begin."

Sam read the first line. "Purity Pledge?"

Bonny nodded. "It's a commitment to your virginity."

_Right_, Dean thought, looking blankly at the sheet on the clipboard and back up at her, _'cause just saying it will make it work_.

"I don't think we can really … unring … that bell," he told her with a smile.

She looked at him expectantly and he added with a one-shouldered shrug, "If you know what I mean."

His smile vanished as she continued to stare at him. He glanced at Sam, not helpful since Sam seemed to be watching her nervously as well. Under the edge of his fingertips, the paper felt thick and heavy and peculiarly slick.

"Oh." She glanced at Sam, then dropped her gaze to the table for a moment. "I see."

Quick recovery, he thought as she lifted her head, a pained but still bright smile pinned to her face. "Well, if you just ask for God's forgiveness … for your sins … and … make a new vow of chastity, well, then you'll be born again as a virgin in his eyes."

Dean looked at her sceptically. "So you just hit the – virginity do-over button? And all's good with the man upstairs?"

"It's not a … button," Bonny said repressively, her smile almost as forced as his own. "And … this isn't just a piece of paper …"

This time she made direct eye contact and he dropped his gaze first as he recognised the uncomfortable mix of earnest faith and bewilderment in her eyes. "I mean, this is your clean slate … your chance to be a virgin, until marriage …"

This whole spiel meant a lot to her, however unlikely it was in reality.

He looked back up, and glanced at his brother. "Well, you had me at 'clean slate'," he said. "Let's do this."

Scrawling his signature across the pledge quickly, he handed the clipboard across the desk, Sam's pen scratching beside him.

Bonny took the clipboards and looked down at the signatures, smiling widely as she looked back at them. "Congratulations, Sam and Dean Winchester. You are, as of now, both officially virgins."

And there was something he'd never thought he'd hear anyone say, Dean thought, his cheeks starting to ache again.

"We have a meeting tonight," she told them, setting the pledges to one side as she bundled the church registration forms on the clipboards and handed them back. "Eight o'clock, here at the church. I'm sorry that's not much notice, do you think you'll be able to make it?"

"Wouldn't miss it for the world," Sam assured her, taking the clipboard she passed over as Dean took the second one.

"Mmm-hmmm," he added noncommittally, filling in the forms as fast as he could, wondering what the hell they were going to have to do – or say – in that.

He admitted that he didn't get it. From what he could see, from what he'd seen of the world over the last twenty-odd years, these people were harking back to a time when things had been so different, families had offered money to get their daughters married off. He could kind of see how that might have tipped the scales on the had she/hadn't she balance sheet, if someone was paying for the privilege, or whatever it was they thought they were getting, but he'd said it before and he'd say it again … lack of experience was lack of experience, no matter what you called it, and in the sack it wasn't such a good thing.

A dozen somewhat pointed questions were sitting behind his teeth as he filled out the multiple questions on the forms with a variety of lies. He didn't let any of them out, and when he signed his name for the second time, not even bothering to read the fine print at the bottom of the last page, he was feeling moderately pleased with his self-control.

That lasted until he and Sam reached the car.

"I don't get it," he said to Sam as he opened the driver's door and looked at him over the roof. "What's the value of not learning one of the key areas of a successful marriage before you take the plunge?"

Sam shrugged. "Realistically? Not much. From a psychological point of view, I guess it's a kind of personal commitment to–" He stopped, not really sure where he was going with that. "I don't know."

"Huh," Dean nodded as if Sam had just confirmed everything he'd thought. "Well, before we have to confess or tell the stories of our lives or whatever it is the damned meeting's going to insist on, I need food."

He got into the car and Sam ducked into the passenger seat, the door closing with a clunk. "We need to check in with Jody anyway, see if she found out anything else about the families." He looked curiously at his brother. "What'd you think of Bonny?"

"Buttoned-down," Dean responded automatically, glancing down the street as he pulled out. "I mean, I think she really believes all that crap she was pitching, but –"

"But kind of unrealistic."

"Yeah." He looked at Sam as he made the next left. "Why?"

"I don't know. I got a weird feeling in there, for a moment or two. Like she was …" he trailed off, unable to nail that feeling any more accurately.

"What?"

Sam shook his head. "I don't know."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Hartford, South Dakota<strong>_

Jody pushed the limp lettuce around the plate and looked up at Sam. "Frank checked back, and Honor's parents attend Good Faith as well. Nothing at their home, no known altercations with any other members," she said.

On the other side of the room's small table, Dean washed his mouthful down with a swallow of beer and shook his head. "This chastity group – anything on that?"

Her mouth lifted to one side dryly. "No, from what I can gather, it's usually something that the church encourages in younger folks, more the high-school crowd actually, but this one is pretty recent."

"What about on the members?" Sam wadded up the wrappings from his food. "Are they all local?"

"Ah, haven't really gotten down to those details yet," Jody hedged. "On my To Do list." She turned and gestured to the laptop, sitting open on the counter behind them. "But I did some digging on the law enforcement databases nationally and I got some hits."

"What kind of hits?" Dean asked through a mouthful of his second burger.

"MOs." Jody picked up the plastic plate and Sam's trash and carried them to the kitchenette. "In the last thirty years, fourteen priests, six nuns and twenty-eight church-going folks have disappeared from their homes and towns, none of them seen or heard from again."

Sam's brow wrinkled up. "Where?"

"All over," Jody said, turning the laptop to face her. "Boston, Phoenix, Portland, Dallas … no pattern aside from groups disappearing in a place, then the next, and so on." She hit the keys and the screen came to life, showing a search engine window. "But there's another weirdness attached to it."

"Awesome," Dean growled, finishing his burger. "What kind of weirdness?"

"In each of those places, a few weeks before those disappearances, there were between three and six others."

"What?" Sam got up and walked behind her, leaning over her shoulder to read. "Twelve to sixteen year olds."

"Right," Jody said. "Now, look at the numbers."

"1976, four girls, two boys disappeared. 1982, three girls, one boy. 1991, three girls. 1998, one boy, two girls. 2002, uh, three girls …" He frowned. "The victims were getting younger too. The last abduction, all three girls were thirteen."

"Now, put that list next to the other one." Jody typed. "What do you see?"

"Seven in total, every year," Sam said slowly, frowning at the screen. "But the older ones are making up a shortfall?"

Dean leaned back in his chair, looking at them speculatively. "Getting harder to find virgins?"

Jody nodded. "There's no national data on the population regarding their sexual status, just a bunch of sociology reports which only cover some regions, but yeah, that's what I thought."

"Anything common to those?"

"No," she said regretfully. "Just that the local police in each instance found the same kind of scene, victims disappeared, a lot of them out of securely locked premises, what witnesses they had reported seeing fire. VICAP is supposed to show up these kinds of patterns, but with funding all over the place, sometimes things slip through."

"Huh." Dean looked at Sam. "Eve said she only brought back the dragons because a virgin sacrifice was needed to let her out."

"Doesn't mean she didn't let loose more while she was wandering around the country," Sam countered with a shrug.

"Dra-dragons?" Jody looked from Dean to Sam. "As in fire-breathing, sitting-on-a-pile-of-gold, taking-virgin-sacrifice … _dragons_? Those things are real?"

Sam nodded. "Too many things are real," he told her disparagingly. "But we've only run into them once." He looked back at Dean. "And we killed them."

"I hate to break up a conversation that includes killing dragons, but aren't you supposed to be heading out for your share-and-care group?" Jody said reluctantly, looking at her watch.

Dean stood up, nodding. "Yeah, can't wait."

"I'll look for anything else that might fit the pattern, and run a check on the members –" Jody turned back to the laptop.

"And on Bonny Fuchco," Sam told her over his shoulder as he grabbed his jacket.

* * *

><p>The meeting room in the church was large, and used for a variety of purposes, Bonny explained as she met them at the door. To one side, a number of musical instruments and electronic equipment had been pushed against the wall. Opposite to those, two long tables had been joined together and covered with a crisp, linen tablecloth and they held a large urn, a tray of cups, sugar and creamer and several covered plates of refreshments, the smells of freshly-baked cookies and cake mingling with the subtler scents from the vasefuls of flowers that were dotted around the room. In the centre, chairs had been set out to form a large circle.<p>

"Suzy, this is Sam and Dean Winchester," Bonny said, drawing them over to a tall, slim blonde woman standing near the middle of the circle. Dean looked at her face, keeping his expression carefully neutral as he felt an unexpected jolt of familiarity. He'd seen her before … somewhere.

"Dean, Sam, this is Suzy Lee," Bonny introduced, turning back to them with an eye-searingly bright smile. "Suzy runs the group here at the church."

"Hey," he said, smiling easily. Aside from the nagging feeling that he'd met her before, she was extensively easy on the eye; shoulder-length blonde hair and big blue eyes, her face fresh-looking. He suppressed the urge to speculate on what lay beneath the slightly baggy, soft green jacket and close-fitting, black slacks, keeping his eyes firmly fixed on her face.

"Welcome to APU," she said, her smile at his brother sending another jolt of recognition through him although he still couldn't pinpoint where or when he might've seen it before. "It's a pleasure to meet you.

"Thanks," Sam said, looking around the room. "Quite a turnout."

Suzy followed his look, nodding. "Not so surprising, really. There're a lot of people who're looking for something more meaningful in their lives."

"I guess." Sam flicked a backwards look at Dean. The look was a warning, Dean knew.

"I think we're all here now," Bonny said. "Shall we get started?"

"Sure," Suzy agreed, turning to the scattered group members. "Everyone, if you'll take your seats?"

Sitting opposite the pretty blonde, Dean watched the group as they found their places around the circle. He kept his expression carefully blank, frowning inwardly as he looked at each one.

"Good evening, everyone, I thought we'd begin with a silent prayer for our missing friends," Suzy said, looking around at the group.

Sam ducked his head, catching his brother's movement from the corner of his eye. Dean was staring at the group leader, brows drawn together.

"A-hemmm!"

Dean glanced at him and ducked his head obediently, eyes closing just as Suzy said, "Amen."

"We have two new members with us tonight," Suzy said, leaning back in her chair comfortably and crossing her legs. "Let's introduce ourselves and tell them a little of what brought us all here?"

There was a soft murmur of assent, and Suzy looked at the tall, thin woman sitting beside her, long, curly red hair pulled severely back from her face and milk-pale skin shining slightly under the overhead lights. "Tammy, why don't you start and we'll work around?"

"Of course," the redhead said, getting to her feet. "My name is Tammy," she started, her gaze shifting from Dean and Sam's face quickly to move around the circle. "I've been with the group for six months and I joined to find others who felt the way I did."

She sat down and beside her, a large woman stood awkwardly, shapeless in a blue sweater and brown slacks, dark hair limp and brushed back. "Hi, I'm June, and I believe that a pure body and soul are the only gifts worth bringing to a marriage."

The next woman rose, as June resumed her seat and Dean struggled to keep his face blank. He glanced at Sam, envying his brother's look of concerned attention for a moment.

"Welcome, Sam and Dean, I'm Diana," the brunette standing said warmly.

The stories weren't all that startling, Dean thought several moments later, watching Carol sit down, smoothing out her blue skirt and tilting her head to look at Sam, the light glancing off her short, blonde hair. Bad relationships mostly, or expectations that had been unrealistic. He still couldn't get why these women thought that giving up entirely was the answer.

"Sam? What brought you here to reclaim your virginity?" Suzy asked, her voice warm and sincere, as Michaela sat down. Dean glanced at his brother.

"Well, it's because every … woman … I've … ever … had relations with, uh, it hasn't … ended … well," Sam said, his hands moving restlessly as he tried to figure out how to explain – without explaining.

Dean snorted softly. _Jessica. Madison. Sarah. Meg. Ruby. Amelia_. "He ain't lying."

"Thank you for being here, Sam," Suzy said, ignoring the comment. "Stay strong. Stay pure."

Dean opened his mouth to comment and shut it again as the women around the circle murmured in unison, "Stay strong. Stay pure."

"And you? Dean?" Suzy turned her gaze on him and he looked back at her, a dozen possible lies, prevarications and obfuscations ricocheting around in his head. "What set you on a path away from sin?"

"Aaah … hard to say … exactly" he said, distracted by both the earnest compassion in her expression and the sense that he knew her from somewhere, sometime. "I guess, after my brother's, uh … problems, I'm mostly here to support him," he finally came up with, a quick glance around at the women's faces telling him that wasn't enough, not by a long shot. "And … uh, well, you know, my, uh, um, relationships, haven't been all that successful either." He looked down and shrugged. "I mean, I don't think that was the sex, uh, per se."

Sam stared fixedly at the floor as he listened to his brother struggling. Group was like a damned truth serum, he thought, cringing a little inwardly as Dean attempted to explain, without explaining, some of the relationships he'd had, in a rambling discourse that didn't have much to do with anything.

"And you know, when you get right down to it, what's the big deal with getting laid?" Dean said, looking around the circle questioningly. "I mean, sure, it feels … well, huh, it feels unbelievable, right?" He didn't wait for an answer and Sam felt his stomach clench slightly as Dean continued on, his voice dropping, roughening a little.

"The intimacy of it, I mean, that's great, right? No secrets, no way to hide anything when you're lying so close, skin to skin, kissing and touching and tasting …"

Sam slid a sideways look at him. He was looking down, his hands moving … descriptively, Sam thought, risking a fast glance around at the faces of the women sitting there. Every single one was watching his brother, their eyes wide, their lips slightly parted. Dean was picking up the entire damned room, he thought in disbelief.

"And … uh … heh," Dean added with a small huffing exhale, his eyes slightly unfocussed, staring at nothing. "That feeling, you know, when you're … uh … um … connected … and well, I mean, I don't know about you but sometimes I forget to breathe, it's all feeling, no thought, no regrets, no guilt –"

Sam's gaze cut back to him, brow creasing up.

"And you hit it, that sweet spot, the beginning of the end, and you just know, it's all building, and there's just no way that anything's under control anymore, and that's a good thing, right? And you're getting lost, in the heat … and the pressure … and the … pleasure, fitting right together–"

"Ahh-Hmmm, hmmm, hm." Sam cleared his throat loudly and Dean's head snapped up, looking around at him.

"And … uh, yeah, well, anyway …" He looked around at the circle, the gazes of the women dropping one by one. "Not a big deal. And uh, seemed like a good idea to … um … take a moment," he added, nodding slightly to himself. "Take a moment and a step back."

He heard Sam's noisy exhale from beside him.

"I think we might take a break here," Suzy said, her skin flushed over her cheeks, looking around at the group. "Unless anyone else has something they want to share?"

Chair legs scraped on the wooden floor as the group rose almost immediately, their silence eloquent enough, Sam thought uncomfortably. He wondered how much they'd learn from the members now.

He looked at his brother. "Just a bit of over-sharing there?"

"I was purifying myself," Dean retorted, shifting uncomfortably. The truth was he didn't remember much of what he'd said, but he figured it'd definitely fallen into the 'too much' of something category since his jeans were feeling tight and not one of the women would meet his eyes as he looked around the room.

"Pornographifying, more like it," Sam muttered, his expression sour.

Dean ignored that, looking past him to the blonde group leader. He couldn't shake the feeling they'd met before. There was something … her face, or a certain expression … it was winding him up.

"Hey, she look familiar to you?" he asked Sam.

His brother turned around. "Suzy?"

"Yeah, I swear I know her from somewhere."

"Oh good, Dean, 'cause that line never fails," Sam said sarcastically.

"Yeah, well, let's find out," Dean said, grinning a little as he walked around his brother and headed for her.

Sam swallowed the reminder that they were there to work as he felt a tap on his shoulder. He turned around to see Bonny standing behind him, beaming.

"Hey."

"So?"

"So …" he hedged, wondering why it was people automatically assumed he'd know what they were thinking.

"How did you like the meeting?" she expanded, hands clasped together in front of her.

"Oh, I-I-I … uh, I loved it," he said, stopping himself from stepping back when she simpered at the answer. "You know, I-I couldn't help but think of those who weren't here."

"Oh," Bonny said, the word escaping on a sigh as she lifted her hands to her chest. "That's sweet, Sam. You know, I think you have the sensitivity to really … understand … what we're doing here."

"Uh –" Sam's mind blanked completely.

"Honor is my favourite," Bonny confided to him, leaning closer. "Such a sweet, bright –"

He saw Bonny's gaze slip past him, her eyes narrowing for a second. "Would you excuse me?" she asked, not waiting for an answer and barrelling past him toward the refreshments table, and June who was surreptitiously wrapping cookies and cake in serviettes and filling her bag.

"Her favourite?!"

He looked around as Tammy turned toward him. "She has no idea of what kind of girl Honor was!"

"Was?" Sam's brow wrinkled up. "You don't say, uh, Tammy – right? The poet?"

He watched her disgruntled expression dissolve as she smiled warmly up at him. Not just his brother who could get a smile, he thought absently, smiling back at her. "Why don't … um … why don't you tell me what kind of girl Honor is?"

He put his hand on the small of her back, guiding her away from the others.

"I'd be happy to tell someone about her," Tammy muttered, her cheeks a brightening pink as she walked across the room with him.

* * *

><p>Dean looked at Suzy's face. Close to, the sense of familiarity was as insistent as an itch. "Are you <em>sure<em> we don't know each other?"

It did occur to him, somewhat belatedly, that he could've met her any time in the last three or so years when he'd been feeling no pain, taken her to bed and not remembered a damned thing about it. She didn't have the air of someone denying a meeting out of embarrassment or bad memories, though and he took that to be a good sign.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm pretty sure we've never met, Dean," she reiterated firmly … again, shaking her head. "You're – you're new in town, right?"

"Uh, yeah," he said, looking around. "New to town, new to this whole – uh – chastity thing."

"I hope you don't mind me saying," she said, her expression once more filled with that compassion that had thrown him before. "You seemed … uh, very involved in your feelings … about what you're giving up."

"Uh, yeah …"

"I'm sorry, I don't mean to pry, I just wanted to let you know that I do provide individual counselling, if you ever need to talk."

He looked at her, one brow rising slightly. "So, what, everybody in the group, they bitch to you?"

"They confide," she agreed more moderately. "Abstinence is really rough without, you know, support, and education … hey, you know what? I have some great books on the Vow that really helped me. I live close, I'll just go grab them –"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Dean said, hand flashing out and catching her arm as she turned away. "With a kidnapper on the loose?"

Suzy rolled her eyes. "No, I'll be fine."

"Tell you what," Dean said, wondering if, for once, it could be this easy. "Why don't I walk with you, just to be safe, okay?" He looked around the room, spotting his brother in deep conversation with the tall redhead. "Just give me one second."

Dean hurried across the room, catching the last half of Tammy's whispered rant as he got close.

"And I bake real cookies for the bake sale! Honor just brings Oreos!"

Sam's gaze lifted and Dean gave him a one-sided grin, stopping a few feet behind Tammy.

"Oh, y'know … uh, excuse me," Sam said to Tammy, stepping around her and walking over to his brother.

"Guess who's taking the teacher home," Dean quipped, grabbing his jacket. "Research."

"You really think you're gonna hit that?" Sam asked, sotto voce. "Dean, she's the chastity _counsellor_."

"Yeah, I know," Dean said. "Everyone … _confides_ … in her. She'll have the dirt on all of them." He pulled his jacket on. "How 'bout you? Any luck?"

"You mean, am I actually working?" Sam asked curtly. "As a matter of fact, yes, I am –"

"Alright, well, good luck with that," Dean told him, slapping a hand against his shoulder as he turned away. Whether or not he had any luck in any other area, he was damned sure he'd find out a lot more about the group from Suzy's opinions than Sam would from face-to-face talks with these women. His brother's dewy-eyed-puppy-dog-reassurance-tell-me-everything days were over.

"Okay," he said to Suzy as he reached the doorway. "Lead the way."

She smiled at him and turned into the hall. "Okay."

He followed her out of the church and they turned left onto the street, walking together through the still night.

"If you don't mind me asking," he said, glancing sideways at her. "What, uh, made you decide on … this?"

Suzy flicked him a fast glance, looking back at the sidewalk in front of her. "Oh, I – I just needed a change from what I'd been doing," she said slowly. "Some breathing space, in a sense." She frowned a little. "Don't you find that life – I mean, life in general, just flies past, sometimes? That there's no time to think, or work out what you really want?"

The comment almost stopped him and he put his hands in his pockets, lengthening his stride to catch up with her. "Yeah, no argument."

She nodded. "As strange as it seems, this, uh, choice, it's forced me into thinking about things I'd been doing, and feeling, and it's, um, giving me a chance to really look at all of that."

"Uh huh." He slid another sideways look at her. "That sounds like, um, it's working for you?"

"In most ways, yeah," she said. "It really is." She looked up, stopping in front of broad stone steps of a low-rise block of apartments. "This is me, I told you it wasn't far."

He stood back as she opened the heavy glass front door, and pulled it shut behind him, waiting for the lock to click before he followed her up the stairs to the second story.

* * *

><p>Sam ran a hand through his hair as he opened the motel room door, letting out a long, low exhale of relief when he saw Jody sitting in front of the laptop, their notes and gear casually strewn around the room.<p>

"Hey."

"How was church?" Jody asked, her attention remaining on the screen.

He snorted, walking slowly across the room and pulling his jacket off. "Well, it turned into confessional," he said, tossing the jacket onto his bed. "Apparently, two of our vics, Honor and Pastor Fred, did the dirty."

Jody swivelled around in the chair and looked up at him. "Oh well, they're not the only ones," she told him, waving a hand at the screen. "Barb Blanton, our missing bride-to-be, her mom said she heard Barb and her fiancé in Barb's bedroom."

"Going at it?"

Jody smiled, picking up the report Frank had dropped off and reading it. "Well … she said she heard sex noises, then Barb crying, then Neil telling Barb it didn't count because it was under thirty seconds."

Sam laughed. "That's a lot of detail."

The sheriff nodded wryly. "She sounds like my mother," she agreed readily. "Then two hours later … she heard a smash and smelled something burning."

Sam leaned against the cupboard beside the desk and looked at her. "Whatever this is, it's not after virgins."

"No," Jody confirmed. "Those who've broken their vows. And I'm guessing that means dragons are no longer contenders?"

Sam glanced at her. "No, they only take virgins. Real ones," he added, thinking of the girl in the hospital.

"I know it's not getting us any further, but uh, how did you kill the dragons?" Jody asked him.

Sam walked to the edge of the bed and sat down, half-smiling. "Dean found the sword of a dragonsbane."

"God almighty, you're pulling my chain!"

He laughed again, surprising himself with how that felt. "Nope, no kidding. It's kind of a long story, but I promise, you'll get the whole thing over a few drinks as soon as we're done here."

"That's a date, mister, and don't you forget it," Jody warned him. She turned back to the laptop. "So, any ideas on what gets hopped on vow-breakers?"

* * *

><p><em><strong>Chicago, Illinois<strong>_

Forrester looked at the woman standing by the window, seeing the tension in her shoulders, in the line of her back. She was used to hiding her feelings, to masking her thoughts, but she wasn't experienced enough to be able to do it with him. The expensive black dress and heavy gold jewellery told him more about her than she could've imagined, even the way she stood gave her away easily. The key to control was leverage, he thought, and she would do anything he asked now.

"You can transform, into any shape or form?"

Turning, she looked at him, the bright red lipstick making her sneer pronounced. "Anything I can touch, yes."

"Good. Pack for a week, we have a number of people to see and we'll go over the scripts on the plane."

"What guarantee do I have that you'll keep your end of this deal?" she asked him, fists clenched by her sides as she walked toward him.

"None," he told her frankly, smiling a little. "But you certainly have my word that I will eliminate your family completely if you do not cooperate."

She turned her head away, the light from the windows outlining her profile and the long curve of her neck, lighting up the blonde hair, immaculately held in an intricate roll at the back of her head. She might be considered beautiful, he thought, good bone structure and a flawless complexion, enhanced by the artful use of cosmetics. He didn't see it, really. Was beauty to be admired, he wondered, if appearance could be changed on a whim?

"And if I do everything you want from me?"

"Then I will ensure the consolidation of your family's position here, and make sure that you get what you want," he said, inclining his head. "First Lady."

It'd come as a surprise to find them here, hiding in the plainest of plain sights, gradually attempting to work influence through the Mayor and the Chief of Police, and taking over the traditional business that had operated in this city under family management for a long time. A genetic anomaly, Saint-Clare had described them as, but one that sometimes bred true, lines of monsters no different from humans, except in the powers locked into their cells.

The order had brought them here, not officially, certainly not sanctioned by the greater council, but experimenting on certain elements, ostensibly to eradicate the conditions. In reality, Saint-Clare had admitted, handing over the copies he'd made of the files, attempting to create creatures that could be used, controlled, their powers harnessed to military strategies. Ambitious. It had, he mused, been the same goal as his own long, long term projects, in 1943 in another land, another time.

Her gaze slid away from him. "What do I pack?"

"Business and formidable," he told her. "The rest we'll acquire on the way."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Hartford, South Dakota<strong>_

Suzy reached around the corner of the door as she pushed it open and hit the light switch, an overhead light and a couple of large table lamps lighting the simply decorated and furnished living room.

"Make yourself comfortable," she told Dean over her shoulder as he closed the door behind him.

He looked around, dragging his coat off and leaving it on a stool against the kitchen island counter. One wall had been painted in burgundy, the others a kind of a matt khaki colour, the trim bright white. A small sofa, entertainment unit and desk took up half the room, the kitchen the other half and a couple of doors led to a bedroom and bath, he guessed.

He turned around to see Suzy unzipping her hoodie, revealing a skin-tight, scoop-necked singlet underneath and showing off a lot more curve than he'd suspected had been underneath the shapeless jacket. She sat down on the sofa with her back to him and he looked away as a fragment of his involuntary speech to the group came back to him vividly. The shrill ring of his phone interrupted the memory and he pulled it out, looking at the screen.

"Not now, Kato," he murmured softly, shutting it off and tucking into back into his pocket as he saw the fat, red candle sitting at the end of the counter. A little soft light wouldn't hurt anyone.

It wasn't until he'd sauntered closer that he realised that she was crying, the sight dousing every thought, possibility and fledgling desire instantly.

Turning to look at him, she said, "I can't stop thinking about my friends. I'm so scared for them." Suzy looked at him entreatingly. "Would you pray with me, Dean?"

_Pray._

"Sure," he agreed, walking to the sofa to sit down beside her. Suzy, he'd noticed already, liked to keep her requests to the man upstairs private and short. He glanced at her, sitting with her eyes closed and her head slightly tipped back, hands clasped between her knees. The deep neck of her top showed an encouraging amount of cleavage, and he let out a quiet sigh, closing his eyes and letting his head bow forward as he waited for her.

It didn't take that long.

"I'm sorry," she said, tilting her head as she looked around at him. "This is not usually how I treat guests. I guess … I feel comfortable with you."

"S'okay," he told her. "You said that the others in the group confided in you? I mean, not that I can talk or anything, but a lot of the people there just seemed to be running from some bad experience?"

For a moment she was silent, her gaze on the floor, then she nodded. "I think we're all running from some bad experience, one way or the other." She turned to look at him. "I try not to make assumptions on first hearings, but you seem to use sex as a way to be close with someone, without having to actually share yourself?"

He stared at her, speechless. "Wha- uh? What makes you think that?"

She shrugged, leaning into the corner of the sofa. "Nothing definitive, but the way you described what you felt about it, it seemed very personal, like you take a lot of care with your encounters." She hesitated, her tilting to one side. "But at the same time, you don't have any desire to continue the relationship to anything else."

Shifting involuntarily on the sofa, Dean looked away, unable to think of a single response to that, to deny it or deflect it. He heard her draw in a breath.

"For Tammy and June, they've never had the opportunity," Suzy said, drawing her legs up and wrapping her arms around her knees as she switched back to more neutral ground. "I would've guessed they could have, at some point, but it wasn't the time or the right guy, so they've just convinced themselves that it's their choice."

He looked down at the floor, pushing aside the reverberations of her view of him and trying to concentrate on her matter-of-fact dissection of the group.

"Diane, Carol and Michaela are all coming out of marriages where their husbands traded up for a younger model and they're just afraid," she continued musingly. "Diane wants another relationship, but she's just worried that it's going to end up the same way, which is probably fair enough. I think she'll probably keep coming until she meets someone, then fade out."

Suzy frowned as she thought about another member of the group. "Consuela's a bit different."

He risked a quick glance at her pause, taking advantage of the fact that she was looking across the room to absently admire the curve of her throat, and the way the lamp-light had lightened her hair to almost wheat.

"What happened to Consuela?"

"She lost her family in a bus accident, two winters ago," Suzy said, looking back at him. "She's not very clear about it but I think she might doing penance of some kind, trying to appease what she thinks God feels about her."

"What?"

She smiled. "You haven't noticed that people try to make deals when something goes terribly wrong in their lives? 'If I do this, maybe it'll never happen again?'"

The words hit him as if she'd aimed them at him directly, and he shrugged, looking at the front door. "Not really, no."

"Well, they do," she said. "All the time. I see it a lot, since I started counselling."

"Huh."

"I shouldn't even be saying any of this," she said, grimacing a little. "It's just – I know how our group looks to outsiders and I don't want you to think it's just a bunch of sad women who can't get laid, you know?"

"No … uh, yeah, no," Dean said, nonplussed.

"These are people who kind of got off-track, somehow," she continued, shaking her head a little. "Lost the way and aren't sure how to get back to what they want – or even what they want. I think the group helps, you know, gives them some support while they're figuring it out. I mean, I know I'm in the same position – I want more out of life than what I had … uh, before … but I'm not sure I'm brave enough yet to go after it. Or even if I know exactly what it is that I'm going after."

She looked away, and shrugged. "Sorry. I don't usually talk this much. It's just, uh, nice to see a guy who's trying to think of alternative way to society's expectations, I guess."

She got up, wiping her hands over her face. "But anyway, I promised you some books."

"Yeah, right," he said, getting up and walking slowly back to his jacket. "Books."

"There are these," Suzy said, pulling out a half-dozen from the shelving beside the desk and carrying them to him. All hefty-sized, Dean thought, looking at the titles. _I Am Pure. A Guide for Chastity. The Way to Purity_. Turning away, Suzy went to the cupboard, crouching down in front of it and retrieving another load. He looked at the bare expanse of back between her singlet and the waistband of her pants and exhaled silently. That particular stretch of skin had always been a favourite.

Tucking the books into one arm, Suzy turned and rose, walking back to him and dropping the second lot on top of the ones he was already holding. He felt the muscles of his arms flex with the extra weight.

"Okay, so … why don't you breeze through these," she said, looking up at him with a shy smile. "And I'm going to head to the little girl's room."

"Hmmm, yeah," Dean nodded, looking down at the stack in his hands.

He heard her go into the hallway and walked back to the cupboard, dumping the books on the top as his phone rang again. Pulling it out, he accepted the call, tucking the phone against his ear.

"Hey. Dean? Dean, are you there?"

One of the drawers of the cupboard was slightly ajar, and through the narrow space he caught sight of a familiar image. He pulled the drawer open and pulled out the DVD cover, staring in disbelief at the woman printed on the front. The series was Casa Erotica, number twenty-eight. The title was Cabana Nights. The woman, standing hip-shot with a pair of maracas in her hands, arms crossed over her bare breasts, was Suzy Lee. Also known as Carmelita Ortega, or more often, just Carmelita.

"Dean, you there? Hello? Dean? Dean!?"

He stared at the cover and turned to look at the hall, mouth dropping open. He'd known he'd seen her before!

"Sammy!" he answered automatically. "Hey."

"What's going on?"

"Found something big," Dean said, pulling out a second cover from the drawer. _Tequila Bun Rise_. He remembered that one.

"Yeah, so did we, so get this," Sam said shortly. "It's not a dragon."

"Uh-huh."

"Dean –?"

He heard the bathroom door close. "Copy that. Not a dragon. Gotta go."

Closing the phone, shoving it back into his pocket, trying to jam the covers back into the drawer, the soft clock-clock of Suzy's shoes sounded along the hall, and Dean finally put the covers on the top of the cupboard next to the books and spun around, leaning more or less casually with an elbow on the stack.

"Hey."

"Hey," she said, one brow lifting questioningly. "Did you get a chance to look at them?"

"Uh, no," he said.

"Are you okay?"

"Me? I'm great, why?"

"You seem … I don't know, a little … nervous?"

"Nervous? No, I'm not nervous … Carmelita."

Suzy's mouth stretched into a humourless smile, and she looked down at the floor. "Uh huh. You've seen my … work."

He grinned at her.

"Listen, I don't blame you if you want to be assigned another … counsellor," she said, shrugging. "I get it."

"No!" Dean said. "No, are you kidding me? I'm a big fan."

She looked at him doubtfully. "That's probably going to a part of the problem."

"Uh, right," he admitted slowly. "It's just a surprise, that's all. I mean, you know, meeting you."

"Yeah."

The flatness of her voice jerked him out of the half-fantasy he'd been entertaining, dousing the memories of her he had from the films. The porn-star-turned-born-again-virgin-casual-encounter scenario wasn't how real life worked.

"Sorry, it's just –" he stopped himself and shook his head. "This is a pretty big swing – what happened? You were at the top of your game?"

She turned away with a derisory smile. "You haven't worked in that industry."

"Uh, well, no."

Sitting on the sofa, she glanced up at him and lifted a shoulder in a helpless shrug. "It's, uh, hard work," she said, daring him to disagree. He managed to keep his face expressionless, moving to sit down next to her.

"I guess I burned out," she said. "Don't get me wrong, I had a lot of money, a nice place, a load of friends who weren't actually friends, but I didn't find that out till I quit," she added, remembering. "There were parties every night, working long hours, and it all got … tedious."

She shook her head. "I didn't think it could, but it did. Everything was full on, all the time, available at any hour." She looked at him. "And it never stopped. No one ever turned off the music."

That he knew about. No one had turned off the fucking music in his life either.

"Still … uh, chastity counsellor?"

She laughed. "What I told you, before, that wasn't a lie. This isn't what I want, not really, but it's given me some peace and I think that some people really need that in their lives. Need to stop and think or stop and not think, just be."

For a second, a heart-beat, he thought of what that would feel like, to get up in the morning without the world sitting on his shoulders. He couldn't make the image come clear. He wondered if he and his brother would ever get to a point where nothing was required of them and they could just be. Unlikely, he told himself impatiently. Death would come first.

"And that's … uh … that's working out okay?"

"It is, in some aspects," she said slowly. "I – I learned to like myself again. Um, learned to know what I like again."

She shook her head. "I don't know why I'm telling you all this."

"Do you miss it?" he asked curiously, pushing his thoughts down and away.

She turned her head to look at him. "All the time."

His heart skipped a beat, and blood rushed in his ears as he looked back at her, the frank invitation in her eyes, unmistakable and sending a fluxing wash of heat that reached deep, reached right the way through.


	16. Chapter 16 The Bitterroot Seed

**Chapter 16 The Bitterroot Seed**

* * *

><p>Sam looked at his phone disparagingly, putting it on the table as Jody looked at him.<p>

"Something came up," he said, sitting down opposite her at the table. "What've we got?"

"Broken vow, breaking vows, chastity, fire," she told him, looking at the hits that were returned on the screen in front of her. "Nothing that fits all of it."

He waved a hand at the laptop, and she pushed it across the table to him. Typing in the references in every combination he could think of into the order's search interface, he hit enter and leaned back. It would take longer, but it was more likely to return what they needed.

Standing up and stretching, Jody turned around and walked to the kitchenette. She emptied the coffee pot and refilled it, rubbing absently at the back of her neck.

"So, what made you look at church?" Sam asked curiously, watching her from the table. "I thought religion would be too simple for you."

Looking at him as she leaned back against the counter, she nodded agreement. "Yeah, I guess it's not so much the religion as the sense of not being entirely alone," she allowed. "There are a lot of times, I can take or leave our pastor's sermons … but –" She stopped and looked down for a moment.

"When Sean died, Rick and I almost fell apart," she said softly. "I put everything I had into the job and that was what held us together until it wasn't so … sharp." She looked up at him and shook her head. "Then, well, you know what happened, Sam. That took just about everything I had."

Sam ducked his head. He knew it alright. Her little boy had been forced from his grave by Death, and had turned on her husband, killing him on the same night Bobby had been forced to kill his wife, Karen, for the second time. He'd turned up just as it'd been happening and had gone back into the house and killed the boy. And Jody had held it together while they'd armed and rounded up the townspeople.

"I tried to figure out some way of dealing after … after Bobby," she said. Sam saw her face pinch up a little at the memories. She'd lost everyone as well. He'd known that, but he'd never seen it clearly before. Never seen the straight line of devastation in her life before.

Jody dragged in a deep breath. "Ancient history," she said curtly, turning back to the coffee pot and staring at it. "But after Crowley, I was looking for real, looking for something that wouldn't explode in my face or take the last bit of hope I had."

In the silence that stretched out between them, the coffee pot hissed and burbled and Sam looked down at the table. He'd been looking for the same thing for a long time. He didn't think he was going to find it. Last year, he'd had hope. He'd thought he could see a way to live their life without it taking everything. But something had changed and he couldn't pinpoint exactly how that'd happened. He couldn't help but wonder if he'd made the right decision, stopping the trial instead of finishing what he'd started and accepting the consequences whole-heartedly.

"Anyway," Jody said a few minutes later, filling their cups from the full pot and carrying them back to the table. "The congregation in Sioux Falls is small, and we're pretty tight. And I get a feeling of belonging, to something bigger. Something that cares. I mean, for a long time I looked around and I couldn't work out – why me? Why'd I have to survive all of that? It's not a good thing, to keep surviving when everyone else dies."

Sam's eyes were bleak as he looked at her. "No, it isn't."

"But we did, didn't we? People say, you know, there's no reason, it's all random, nothing's planned or meant. That's not what I feel." She looked at him over the rim of her cup as she sat down. "But it's too hard to do it alone. And it's a comfort, to have them."

He nodded. "Well, we could all use that."

"It's a strength too, Sam," she added a moment later, not looking at him. "Not the church itself, but what we're there for."

He looked at her, remembering how it'd felt to tell … someone … everything. To tell the truth about himself and feel it bleed out of him, a poison or infection, taking the taint with it, taking his shame and guilt and pain.

* * *

><p>Dean groaned as she slid her hands over him, catching her wrists and stopping her. "Wait, uh, it's been awhile and I – uh – I don't want this to be over before it's begun," he muttered, trying to get a deep breath into his lungs.<p>

"Relax," Suzy said softly, brushing her mouth over his chest. "No deadlines here, Dean, nothing to get up for. Let your mind go, and your body will follow."

_I prefer ladies with experience_. The thought was barely coherent. She had way too much experience. His eyes screwed shut, back arching up involuntarily. It _had_ been a while and he was so fucking close to the edge he couldn't breathe at all. Every time he opened his eyes and looked at her, what he saw was overlaid by dozens of older memories, celluloid ones but all of them potent, each one laden with its sensory bundle of raw need. He rolled over, pinning her under him, trying to get back any kind of sense that he had some control.

_Kissing. _Her lips were soft and compliant under his, telling him without any kind of doubt how much she wanted him.

_Touching. _Silken skin, yielding and intoxicatingly scented, detonating sensation and pleasure along his nerve endings, as he explored every inch, his arousal increased with every moan, every hitch in her breathing, every unfocussed look as her lashes fluttered against her cheeks and he could feel the shivers that trembled through her body under his hands and mouth.

_Tasting. _Salt and sweet, hidden deep and filling him up with waves of heat that pounded in time with his pulse, roared in his head, twisted and turned, uncoiling faster and faster.

_That sweet spot_. He shuddered deeply, pushing through and feeling himself engulfed, her hips lifting sharply, bucking under him and his vision narrowing abruptly as every sensation fed and looped back between brain and groin.

_Heat. Pressure_. Swollen, rippling muscles that he fought to thrust through, his senses on fire, and her involuntary cries spiking into him, the long muscles of back and thighs contracting sharply with each one. Full and tight and going to fucking well explode but he couldn't stop, couldn't help but try to make it last … a bit longer … a second or two more …

_Release_.

And the world went away. Far, far away as he drifted in a silence of peace and emptiness and almost-dying, not a brother or a son, not a saviour or a sinner. Just himself. Just Dean. No lies. Nothing to worry about, wrapped in her arms and … content.

The soft huffs of breath against his cheek had slowed and Dean rolled to one side, every muscle in his body loose and heavy, leaving one arm curled loosely over her stomach.

"That was …" Suzy murmured beside him. "… worth waiting for."

He turned his head, one side of his mouth curling up in a lop-sided grin. "Took the words right out of my mouth."

Rolling onto her side and propping herself on one elbow, her thigh sliding over his for balance, she looked down at him and said, "I don't think I've ever sex like that outside of a relationship."

He felt himself pulling back, his gaze cutting away. "Just making sure you had a good time," he muttered uncomfortably.

Her exhale ghosted against the side of his jaw. "That wasn't a complaint. It was … beautiful."

He shifted a little. She was right, he realised with a deeper pang of discomfort. Even when he wanted it to be just sex, it wasn't. He gave more. Looked for more. Revealed more, he thought uneasily. Disengaging himself, he sat up, looking distractedly around the room for his jeans.

"Dean?" Suzy sat up beside him. "Why don't you –"

"I can't," he said, a little abruptly, spotting his clothes and rolling off the bed.

He didn't look back as he got up and grabbed a handful of denim, listening to the silence behind him.

"Sorry," she said softly. "I wasn't – I didn't mean to pry."

Turning to sit on the edge of the bed, socks in one hand, Dean felt his prickly defensiveness disappear as quickly as it'd come. He looked over his shoulder at her.

"You weren't," he told her. "You're right. But it doesn't change anything. Doesn't mean I can do anything about it."

"Did you ever try?"

Memory washed through him for a moment, a house and a woman and a kid, and dying in suburbia, grieving and not himself, not able to be himself because his past was filled with too much pain to ever let out and he didn't know how to let go.

"Yeah," he said. "Didn't work out."

The silence stretched out between them as he dragged his socks on. He couldn't explain it any more than that. Like her, he thought, he didn't know exactly what he wanted. He only knew he couldn't ever have it. He heard her move on the bed behind him.

"Why did you join the group?" she asked. "You're not looking for an excuse."

He pulled on his boots, letting out his breath. "People are disappearing. My brother and me, this is our kind of business."

"So you're … um, undercover?"

"Kind of." He looked around at her again, picking up his tee shirt and turning right side out. "This … this wasn't a part of that."

She smiled, turning away. "I'm a big girl," she told him as she moved to the other side of the bed and picked up her clothes, drawing on her singlet. "I wasn't looking for anything else either."

The smell of burning wood wafted through the room and Dean's head snapped up as he pulled his shirt on. He looked around the room. Suzy was pulling on a pair of jeans, head bowed as she buttoned them up.

"You smell that?"

Suzy turned around, zipping up her jacket. "Yeah, but there's no –"

The door flew open and Dean registered that it'd been ripped from its hinges as it hit the other wall. Fire, smokeless and radiating intense heat, rippled through the doorway and he saw two figures inside it, moving toward them.

"Get behind me!"

He pulled out his gun, aiming and firing in a fluid motion, the shots evenly distributed between the two shadows in the flames he could see.

The fire billowed up for a moment, then reached out, wrapping around him. He heard Suzy's scream as the oxygen disappeared around them and the flames filled the room.

* * *

><p>"Okay."<p>

Jody looked up curiously as Sam leaned closer to the laptop screen. "What?"

"I got a match with the order's files," Sam said absently, reading. "The Roman Goddess, Vesta. Came back on virgins, vows and fire. She was the goddess of hearth and home, responsible for the fertility and success of the harvests, her symbol was fire because fire indicates purity."

"Sacrifices? Disappearances?"

"Uh, she took a tribute at harvest-time every year, but no humans, just the best of the harvest," he said, frowning as he read down the screen. "But those who served her, swore a vow of chastity for thirty years, and if any of them broke their vows, she would bury them alive."

"That would be the infamous Vestal Virgins, I guess," Jody remarked.

"Yeah." Sam's head snapped up and he looked at his phone, erupting from his chair and grabbing his jacket.

"What!?" Jody half-rose, looking at the panic on his face.

"She takes the ones who break their vows – and it's been almost two hours for Dean and Suzy."

"Crap!" Sheriff Mills grabbed her coat from the back of her chair, hurrying after Sam as he bolted from the room, yanking the door closed as she passed through.

"Those pledges you signed, they weren't for thirty years, or binding you to a deity!" she gasped as she slung herself into the passenger side of the black car, Sam shifting into reverse and stamping on the accelerator as she pulled the door shut.

"Didn't look that way but we didn't exactly examine them," he said, spinning the wheel and straightening out, swearing and stamping on the brake as he realised he didn't know where Suzy lived.

"I've got Bonny's number," Jody said, pulling out her phone. "Head for the church."

He nodded, glad that she was here. They had no idea what'd happened to the people after they'd disappeared. He had a bad feeling that his brother had joined them, but was it abduction or death?

_Buried alive._

Alive.

He held that thought as he swung the car through the turns, skimming through almost-red lights and rocketing through the greens.

"Ms Fuchco, this is Sheriff Mills, from Sioux Falls," Jody said, bracing herself between the door and dash. "Fine, thank you. We're following up on the member's of the group and my deputy hasn't recorded an address for Suzy Lee – could you provide that?"

She felt Sam's gaze flick to her and she nodded. "Thanks, yes, I've got it. You have a good evening too, ma'am."

Tucking the phone back into her pocket, she snapped, "52 Cavanaugh Street. Apartment 23."

Cavanaugh was the one the church was on, Sam remembered and his foot went down hard.

* * *

><p>Dean lay on his side, consciousness returning with a snap but unmoving, taking in as much as information as his senses could deliver. The scuff and rustle of movement, not very close. People, he thought. The smell of cold concrete. Underground, somewhere. Water, not close either, trickling and filling the air with a cold, almost metallic scent. Warmth against his back and a faint movement. Suzy had been pulled along, and she was alive.<p>

He opened his eyes.

The soft, golden flicker of a lantern threw the shadows of the three people watching him against a featureless concrete wall. He pushed himself upright and looked around. The space was large and bare, well-ventilated, he noted, seeing the grilled vents high on two of the walls. His gaze passed over the two women and man without curiosity. Undoubtedly the missing Honor, Barb and Neil. He wondered where the pastor was.

"You know how we got here?" he asked Neil.

The man shook his head. "There was fire. Then nothing. Then here."

"Know where 'here' is?"

Glancing at the women standing beside him, Neil shook his head again.

Suzy stirred, rolling to one side and blinking in the light. "Where are we?"

"Someplace underground," Dean said, getting to his feet and holding a hand out to her, his free hand digging in his coat pocket for his flashlight. "Other than that, could be anywhere." He looked over his shoulder at the others. "There was another guy, a pastor?"

"He's gone," Honor said quietly. "There were noises, above us." She gestured to the roof and Dean saw the round, steel door in the ceiling, almost hidden in the shadows. A rusted steel ladder led from the ground up to it. "It got too bright to see, and when the light disappeared, he was gone."

"He was down here – what? Two weeks?" Dean asked her.

She nodded, wiping impatiently at the tears that were making clean tracks down her face. "He was starving."

"We'll all starve," Neil said sourly. "We've got water – air – no food. Three weeks is what they say, isn't it?"

"How long you been down here?" Dean asked abruptly.

"One week, I think," Barb said uncertainly, glancing at her fiancé.

"Then we've got plenty of time to find a way out," Dean said, looking at Neil stonily. "Right?"

The other man turned away without answering and he thought he was going to have trouble with him, sooner or later. Looking back to Honor, he asked, "You've been right through this place? Every room, every corner?"

She nodded unhappily. "I think it might've been an old bomb shelter," she said, gesturing to the other end of the long, wide room. "You know, one of those atomic bomb shelters? There's a bathroom and a kitchen. The water's coming out clean."

Dean started to walk to the other end, dragging every bit of information he'd ever heard of on the fallout shelters that'd been so popular fifty years ago. The shielding depth depended on the material, he remembered. Not so deep if lead or concrete was the covering, three foot minimum recommended for earth. He looked up at the ceiling. Earth or concrete, he wondered? Didn't matter. They weren't digging their way out. The sealed hatch was the only way in or out. The vents were all too small, even for Honor, the smallest of them. Presumably they dog-legged somewhere along their path, which meant his phone was completely useless as well.

"Dean?" Suzy said softly from behind him.

He turned around and looked at her.

"Maybe this … is … God's punishment? For what we did?" she asked him, her gaze shifting behind her then dropping to the floor.

He snorted. "Trust me, this is not God's work."

But they'd been taken less than fifteen minutes after, he thought, lifting his flashlight and letting the beam travel along the walls. He looked back at Barb and Neil. Going to be married, and he was guessing that Neil had pushed a little since the marriage was going ahead. He couldn't think of anything offhand that got so pissed at someone getting some that it grabbed people and buried them. Breaking vows. That was something else.

He hoped that Sammy was on the ball, 'cause for the life of him he couldn't imagine a single lead that his brother could use to find them.

* * *

><p>"Anything from the neighbours?" Sam asked, putting the DVD cover down and turning as the sheriff came back into the apartment.<p>

"Smelled burning wood. That's it," Jody said, looking around. "On the plus side, we had a light shower just after eight o'clock, and I've got two sets of footprints on the back stairs."

"You're kidding?" Sam stared at her. "What kind of goddess leaves footprints?"

"And why're there two sets?" Jody agreed. "Come on."

Following her out, Sam frowned as he thought about the bits and pieces they knew. The front door of Suzy's apartment had been blown – or rather torn – off its hinges. Even two people couldn't have done that, he thought. There were two sets of footprints coming in and none going out. No drag marks, no signs of a fight inside the apartment. Dean wouldn't have gone down without a fight, no matter how many there'd been unless he'd been knocked out? Had the door hit him? He didn't think so. No blood, hair or fibres anywhere on it and it was half-embedded in the wall dividing the living room from the bedroom.

"Why's the MO changed?" he asked distractedly. "All the others were no damage, except for the car."

"Maybe it's circumstantial?" Jody said, opening the door to the rear of the building. "I don't know."

"Maybe the power involved is fluctuating, for some reason," Sam said, half to himself as he stood behind Jody and held the door open.

"Here," Jody said, flipping on her flashlight. Sam moved closer, crouching to look at them. Both sets were narrow, and small. Not a man's, he thought immediately, or not a big man's at any rate. One had a ripple pattern, the other an interconnected repeating pattern of circles and triangles. He'd seen those before, he knew. They were the soles of cheap runners. He'd had a pair years ago.

"Womens, you think?"

Jody nodded. "I think that Vesta has a couple of Vestal Virgins doing her dirty work," she said. "No idea how they're using her power, but maybe she gave them something of hers?"

He got to his feet. "We need to check out the church."

"How're your B&E skills?" Jody asked acerbically.

Grinning at her, he tapped his jacket pocket and turned away down the hall. "Up to speed."

* * *

><p>The black car sat in the shadows, across the street from the church. Sam looked through the glasses, moving them incrementally across the white deco front.<p>

"Why don't you talk to Dean about what's worrying you, Sam?" Jody asked him quietly, her gaze travelling slowly from one end of the street to the other. "I'm getting the feeling that you two aren't. Talking, I mean."

"We do," Sam said automatically, brow wrinkling slightly as he realised that wasn't so accurate any more. "We did," he amended. "I don't know."

"Anything?" Jody looked at the front of the building.

He shook his head. "No lights. Didn't see any movement."

They got out of the car and walked together down the street under the shadows of the trees, crossing over and taking the side-street around to the back.

"What made you ask that out of the blue?" Sam murmured as the lock gave way under his picks and he pushed the door open.

"You seem like you're holding a lot in," she whispered, slipping into the darkness inside and flicking on her flashlight. "So does Dean."

He eased himself in behind her and closed the door, digesting that. He couldn't rid himself of the thought that there was something wrong – something wrong with him, and his brother's morning questions and checks didn't really dissipate that worry. Dean kept saying he was concerned about the effects of the trials. He wasn't sure that was it – or if it was, that it was all of it. Dean couldn't lie to family, couldn't lie to anyone he cared about really. And a lot of what he'd been saying lately seemed to be pretty thin.

_Like bad lies._

"Office is that way," he said softly, gesturing over her shoulder. She nodded and started walking.

* * *

><p>Pacing restlessly across the room, Dean was barely aware of the muttering of the couple on the other side. Until Barb's voice rose.<p>

"Don't, Neil! _Please_, don't!"

"Sssh!"

He turned and looked at them, his suppressed anger at being trapped down here flaring up as he saw the way Neil's hands were biting into his fiancee's arms, the look of fear on her grime-smeared face.

"Don't what, Neil?" he asked casually.

"Just mind your beeswax, pal!"

That was enough. In three long strides Dean was across the room, registering that Neil's hands dropped from the woman's arms as he approached, and that the man hadn't thought he could move that fast.

"Listen, we're all stuck down here together, so you got something to say, you say it!" he snapped.

"Okay," Neil said, straightening up. "Whatever that fire-ball thing was? It's taking the weakest and I am not going to be next!" He glanced across the room at Honor, waving an explanatory hand toward her. "So the way I see it, her leg's busted anyway! We serve her up, it could buy us some time –"

"Screw you, Neil!" Honor said, cutting him off as she realised what he was saying.

Dean wasn't sure if he wanted to laugh or take out his frustrations on the guy's face. His faith in his own species had never been all that strong, and he wondered why the hell he kept putting his ass on the line to save people when they were so quick to throw each other to the wolves.

"Busted leg?" he snarled at Neil, grabbing a handful of the man's shirt and shoving him into a stumbling backwards shuffle until he hit the wall. "Try a sprained ankle, you fucking douche. Nobody's serving anybody up!"

If the guy had let it go there, Dean thought later, he might've been able to retain a few shreds of his belief in the human race. But he hadn't.

"We're all going to be served up," Neil said, his voice grating. "One by one, no matter what we do. Give it Honor, it might save the rest of our necks!" He swallowed against the pressure on his chest. "Do you have a better plan?"

"Maybe I do," Dean said, forcibly injecting agreeability into his voice as he stared into the other man's eyes. "Maybe we'll give it you?"

He watched that sink in. "Oh, what? You don't like that idea?" he asked mockingly, leaning closer to Neil, his expression stony but every muscle tensed. "Then shut up."

Neil shrank back a little as he was released. It would keep him quiet for now, Dean thought, turning and glancing at Honor briefly as he walked away, but not for long. Guy was definitely the save-yourself-and-to-hell-with-anyone-else kind. He dragged in a deep breath, trying to shed the tension that was going to tie him into knots before much longer.

He slowed down, lifting his head to look up at the hatch in the ceiling. It was hinged, designed to open upwards.

* * *

><p>"Sam? You got a light?"<p>

Sam turned around, his forehead creasing up at he looked at Jody. The beam of her flashlight sat on a couple of candles.

"Might be easier than one flashlight between two?" she said and he nodded, pulling out the matchbook he carried and lighting them.

By the candlelight, Jody started pulling out the papers in the files on the chastity group's members, Sam working on the pile on the other side.

"What the – come here and look at this," Sam said, and she looked up, walking around the desk to stand beside him. He moved the Purity Pledge sheet closer to the candles, holding it above them.

She felt her eyes widen slightly as more writing became visible in the rising heat from the flames, fine lines of calligraphy filling the wide spaces between the typed sentences.

"You signed a contract for thirty years," she said, reading the specifications of the pledge. "As Vesta's servant, no less."

He drew the paper away from the candles and they watched the writing disappear again.

"Well, that's a new one on reading the fine print," she said, looking at the papers. "Tammy and June were the founding members, by the way."

"No surprise," he said distractedly, staring at the paper. "This might be a good thing."

The sheriff blinked at him. "How – exactly?"

"She had to have the full contract written down, even if no one signing knew about it," Sam said. "It means that she's bound by her own rules. She can't just shake and bake on a whim."

"And that helps us how?"

"Have you got the addresses of those two?" he asked, shoving the papers back in the files. "If they've been given something of Vesta's, to help with the kidnappings, we need to find it."

"Yep, got them." Jody looked around the office before blowing out the candles. "Seriously, Sam, how are we going to stop this?"

"Everything has a weakness," Sam said shortly, waiting at the door and pulling it closed behind them. "Just a matter of finding out what it is."

* * *

><p>"What are you looking for?" Suzy asked, watching Dean striding around the room, his flashlight flickering over the walls and floor.<p>

"Tools, any kind," he answered tersely, swinging around. "Screwdriver, wrench, fuck a hammer and a piece of metal would do."

"Here," Neil said, taking the lantern and heading for the recessed kitchen. "There was a bucket left down here, had a couple of tools in it," he added, glancing back over his shoulder. "They're rusted to hell."

"I'll worry about that when I have to." Dean followed him into the half-room. "That'll do," he said, dropping to one knee to pull out a screwdriver and a very rusted adjustable wrench.

"I'll need the lantern," he told Neil, handing him the flashlight.

Hanging the lantern at the top of the ladder, Dean looked at the partially-recessed nuts of the hinges. He had almost no room to move, tools that were just as likely to slip or break in his hands and almost no leverage. Putting the edge of the screwdriver blade against the corner of the nut, he used the end of the wrench as a hammer and let out a small exhale of relief when he saw the nut turn. Might take a week, he thought sourly, but he would get the fucking things off.

* * *

><p>In the motel room, Jody poured out fresh coffees and looked over the counter at Sam. He was hunched up in front of the laptop, chewing on the corner of his lower lip, his fingers flying over the keys every few minutes as he searched through the database held in what he referred to as 'the bunker', or sometimes just 'the order'.<p>

She wasn't sure what it was, and she wasn't certain it was within the boundaries of the odd relationship she had with the brothers to ask about it. It'd been Sam who'd driven to Sioux Falls to tell her about Bobby and drive her to the hospital to pay her last respects. She had the feeling that had been because Dean hadn't been dealing, with either Bobby's death or his own ability to face it.

She'd seen how close the two of them were, but even if she hadn't, Bobby had told her about them, just small things, bits and pieces, over the years they'd been friends and sometimes bigger pieces when he'd been tired and drunk and unable to keep those glass-sharp memories or feelings to himself.

His loyalty to them – and theirs to him in return – had been why she'd called them about the disappearances in Ohio. Well, she thought to herself, not the only reason. They were the only two people in the world who'd loved the old hunter more, and talking to them, even if only occasionally, gave her sense of him, of being close again.

"I don't believe it," Sam muttered.

"What?" She put a cup down near him.

"Listen to this," Sam said, peering at the screen. "The sacred fire of Vesta could be lit only by the friction of two pieces of wood, one of them being necessarily from an _arbor felix_, auspicious tree, most notably, oak, and cave in shape. Water was not allowed into the inner _aedes_ nor could stay longer than the indispensable time on the nearby premises. It was carried by the Vestales in vessels called futiles which had a tiny foot that made them unstable."

"Does that mean we can kill her with water?" Jody asked, setting her cup on the table as she leaned over Sam's shoulder to read the file's text.

"I don't think so," Sam said, frowning as he scrolled down the page. "But I think she's going to be vulnerable if we put out her sacred fires."

"What the hell is an aedes?"

"It's the temple of the god or goddess who lived there," Sam said absently, his eyes closing as he thought through the possibilities. "The temple has to be somewhere near the burial ground," he said. "Someplace quiet and discreet. There'll be two fires burning in it – on an east-west line. Both need to be extinguished with water. Then I think a branch of the auspicious tree that can light the fire can also kill her."

"You think?"

He pointed at the screen and Jody read down the page, murmuring the words aloud. "The tree that can light the fire can also put it out forever. Soaked in water and bound with iron, the oak is a tree many of the deities of the Old World feared the most. Vesta and most gods and goddesses of ancient Rome and Greece allowed but a single oak to be planted in the vicinity of their temples, and it had to be kept small, the branches no thicker than that of a human wrist." She turned to look at him. "You're thinking where there's smoke …"

"There's a weapon capable of killing a goddess," Sam finished shortly. "Yeah."

"Alright. What's the plan?"

"What're the addresses?" Sam asked, flicking over to a location search engine. Jody read them out, and Sam flagged them on the on-screen map of Hartford. Seen that way, the pattern was blindingly clear.

"That's Zed Wimmer's farm," Jody said, pointing at the closest building to Bonny Fuchco's house, less than a mile away through the fields. "He died eight years ago, no family – and rumour had it, he was worried enough during the Cold War to build himself a fallout shelter under his barn."

"Where's your car?"

"Back home," she said, picking up her jacket and pulling it on. "I can get a patrol car from Frank."

"You need to get running water, maybe four to six gallons," he said, closing the screen and grabbing his own jacket. "Get to the aedes and put out the fires."

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Going to the barn," he replied, checking his pockets for flashlight, EMF, gun, knife, phone and keys. "I'll get Dean and the others, hopefully Tammy and June will follow me."

"And Bonny?"

"And Bonny. Once the fires go out, she's going to be vulnerable," he assured her. "And she'll come after the victims she's already got."

* * *

><p>Dean swore as the screwdriver blade slipped again, narrowly missing the side of his thumb. He dragged in a deep breath, setting it back in place and tapped at it some more, feeling it give and then turn. Four bolts were free, only left another eight. He ignored the cramping in his thighs and back and shoulders, jammed up against the hatch and bracing himself against the ladder, ignored the deep ache in his hands, and focussed his attention back on the recalcitrant nut.<p>

The locking mechanism for the door was on the inside, where he'd expected to find it. Wasn't helping. Someone had jammed something in on the outside. Losing the hinges might or might not help, he knew. It depended a lot on what the exterior of the hatch looked like.

One thing was going to help, even if they couldn't get the door open. Honor and Neil had said that whatever it was that was doing this had opened the door when it come to get Pastor Fred. The hatch would fall into the room, when it came back for whoever was next. And it would have to come down, right down to retrieve it. He was pretty damned sure he could something about that.

_You have made atonement._

The not-voice of his dreams came back to him and he tried to push it away. He'd done what he'd could. Maybe it was enough, maybe not. He couldn't tell anymore.

_The angels are gathering. A time of war._

The screwdriver slipped again and Dean snapped his head to one side as it bounced off the metal hatch and skittered over the curved surface, nicking his cheek before he let go and it fell to the ground.

Sonofabitch.

He'd heard that. Not with his ears, maybe, but somewhere in his head. Closing his eyes, he drew in a breath and looked down.

"You alright?" Neil asked from the bottom of the ladder, looking up.

"Yeah, slipped," Dean told him, coming down a rung and stretching out his hand for the screwdriver. Neil passed it up and he closed his fingers tightly around the handle, hauling himself back against the metal.

He'd _heard_ it. Awake this time.

Looking at the nut, he reached up and started to unscrew it from the bolt, pressing his fingers tightly against the flat-headed metal when he saw them shaking.

* * *

><p>Sheriff Jody Mills looked at the dark house for almost ten minutes, debating with herself the wisdom of going inside. The aedes had to be somewhere in there, Sam had said. Two fires. All she had to do was carry the five-gallon jerrican in her hand, go into the house and put them out. Piece of cake, she told herself. Walk in the park.<p>

But memory clung to her, a sticky cobweb of dread and fear. Lying on the cold tile floor, unable to breath, pain and blood filling her chest and throat, knowing it was impossible. Impossible or not, those memories were there. She'd been down the rabbit-hole twice now and there were nights she couldn't sleep at all because the dreams that came brought her to screaming wakefulness.

_Get your ass into gear_, she snapped at herself, forcing the first small step toward the house. _Sam's running right into the monster's lair so you can do this without interference_.

It wasn't much of a goad, but it worked. She took another step and another, working her way around to the back of the house through the black shadows of the overgrown garden.

At the rear, a mossy and leaf-covered patio led her to the back door and she stopped in front of it, setting the can down and checking that the door was actually locked before she pulled out a small, gun-shaped device with a pair of protruding thick, flat metal wires. It was illegal, at least for John Q to carry around. She'd acquired it from an old-fashioned locksmith last year, figuring that if she needed to get into a place in a hurry, it would be less destructive than kicking the door in. The sharp clack of the picks in the lock made her jump a little, and she swallowed fast, turning the handle and pushing the door wide.

Inside, it was darker. Jody picked up the water and pulled out her flashlight, not liking having both hands tied up and no way to get to her gun if she needed it, but unable to think of an alternative. The beam of the flashlight flicked around the room, lighting up a refrigerator, a long counter, a small butcher's block next to an island in the centre. Kitchen.

_Okay._

Through the open door at the end of the room, the flashlight picked up a gleam of something shining and she moved through, following the short hallway to an open and tiled room that seemed to take up half of the first floor plan of the house.

Light flickered and danced over the smooth, plastered white walls, the soft crackle and hiss of the flames echoing like whispers from the bare, hard surfaces.

Jody looked around, mouth falling open slightly as she saw the stylised flame of the goddess, a mosaic design of vivid, small, hand-glazed tiles repeated around the walls. Wasn't kidding about the fire part, she thought a bit dazedly. And it's time to put those out.

Unscrewing the lid, she carried the jerrican to the furthest fire.

"Unbeliever."

The sibilant whisper came from behind her and she swung around, sending a spray of water across the fire, the droplets hissing loudly as they turned to steam.

"Heretic!"

Like an echo, a second whisper sent her spinning around the other way, two shadows coming closer, wavering outlines, one tall and thin, the other large and misshapen.

_Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dumber_, Jody thought, freezing for a moment. The weight of the jerrican dragged her attention back to what she was supposed to be doing there and she lifted it, sending a gushing spout of water across the fire next to her, the flames writhing and hissing and spitting away from it like living things.

"NO!"

It could only have been seconds, but it felt like hours, the sheriff thought later, watching the billowing clouds of steam and smoke, smelling the acrid bite of the wet ash and charred wood. She felt as if she was moving in a dream, heavy and slow, her feet mired in some unmoveable sticky substance as she struggled to turn around and run down the room to the other hearth, heart fluttering against her ribs with the expectation of being burned alive by the goddess' servants at any moment.

Nothing touched her and the agonising slowness vanished abruptly when she reached the far fire, skidding along the tiles as she lifted and jerked the can, the water gouting from it in a satisfying arc, the flames quenched, and more smoke filling the room.

_Cover_, she thought, twisting around and pitching the empty container at her pursuers. Water slicked the polished tile floor and the Vestales slid and careened into each other. Dropping to her hands and knees, gulping a cleaner breath of air near the floor, Sheriff Mills crawled at top speed for the door.

* * *

><p>Sam parked the Impala to one side of the barn's main door, listening to the hot metal tick in the silence of the night for a moment before he opened the driver's door and got out.<p>

He'd stopped by the oak at the town common, cutting two short branches, each the thickness of his wrist, and using Ruby's knife to shave the ends into points. Both had been soaked in water and he leaned back into the car to retrieve them from the passenger well floor, his left hand wrapped around them and the flashlight, his right hand holding the Taurus.

County had no records of Wimmer's shelter on their files and Jody had shrugged philosophically. It'd been a different time, when regulations weren't so binding and what a man did on his own property wasn't of so much interest to anyone else. Burial grounds excepted, of course, she'd told him dryly.

If it wasn't built under the barn, he would have a night's work to find it, he realised. The farm was a little under fifty acres, and much of it had returned to woodland. He had a metal detector in the trunk, but he wasn't sure it was going to be that easy.

The big hinged doors creaked as he pushed one side open, and his heart sank slightly as he saw the partitioning walls, dividing the building up into pens and stalls, workshops and storage areas for the slowly rusting machinery. His grip tightened around the Taurus and he walked into the dark interior, resignedly aware that the flashlight made him a target to anyone hiding in there, waiting for him.

No doorways or handily located staircases gave access to a lower level, and after circuiting the entire building twice, Sam was starting to wonder if they'd been right about the location. He swung the flashlight beam across the main hay store again, walking slowly backward as he searched for any sign that someone had been in here within the last fifty years. His feet rustled the straw, scattered across the earthen floor, then one boot heel thunked, and he stopped dead.

Trapdoor. Of course.

Turning fast, he dropped to his knees as the light gleamed on the dusty straw. Sam tucked the gun into his pocket, dropping the oak branches as he swept his hand across the barely visible recessed wooden trapdoor in front of him. He saw the hinges and a second later, the pair of bolts that had been laid flush with the level of the wood.

"Dean?" he croaked, yanking back on the first of the bolts, his throat suddenly dry with fear. Swallowing impatiently, he tried again, leaning forward to reach the second bolt.

"Dean!?"

Throwing the wooden door open, Sam stared down into the short trench. Perhaps eighteen inches lower, heavily framed in hardwood timbers and brick walls, the circular metal hatch had been expeditiously locked by an iron bar, thrust through the hatch handle and a welded steel loop on the frame.

"DEAN!"

"Sam!" Muffled and distant, his brother's voice nonetheless sounded strong. More importantly, alive. His eyes fluttered shut in relief for a second, then he opened them and reached for the bar.

"Getting it open," he said loudly, reaching down into the pit. "Getting you outta there!"

He didn't hear the crackle behind him, but he felt the blast-wave of heat that scorched his clothing and set the tips of his hair smouldering. Rolling over and to the side, his hand was slapping the ground for the oak branches, the other arm thrown over his face as he looked at the fiery woman who walked toward him, the straw under her feet catching alight and blazing.

"You have not broken your vow," she said, and Sam shifted backwards, fingers closing around the oak branch and dragging it with him.

The flames died away completely and he looked at Bonny Fuchco, striding toward him. She was dressed in a long, loose white cloth, pinned with a huge, golden brooch at one shoulder, her hair curling in red-gold ringlets and falling over smooth, alabaster skin.

"Defile the Temple of Broken Vows and you forfeit life, mortal."

"Kind of takes the edge off your high ground when you have to hide the details of the contracts, doesn't it?" he replied, shoulders banging into a thick, wooden support.

She laughed, the sound high and musical, underlain with a sneer. "Ask them for thirty years when they can't envisage the next thirty days?"

"Those contracts were bogus and you know it."

"Caveat emptor. All they had to do was remain pure – is that so hard?" she said, smiling mockingly at him. "To subjugate one small thing to the will for everlasting happiness?"

"Not so everlasting."

"No," she agreed, glancing at the metal hatch as she passed it. "But then, what is?"

She was less than five feet from him and he pushed back against the frame behind him, using it to get to his feet, the branch half-hidden behind his back.

"You didn't take humans before," he said, needing another couple of seconds.

"They kept my fires burning, they offered the best of the harvest, they kept the Temple clean and I had hundreds of servants, right across Rome." She stopped in front of him. "Now … now, there are trysts in my shrines. Don't tell me you haven't felt the itch for revenge, every now and then, Sam Winchester."

He lunged across the yard separating them, the branch rising and saw her eyes widen in shock.

* * *

><p>Behind her, the shrieks and wailing suddenly ceased and Jody stopped in the hall, leaning back against the wall and dragging in deep breath after breath, wondering what the hell had happened.<p>

_Nothing good_, she told herself, getting to her feet. _Get out of the house. Now_.

The back door still stood ajar, and she ran for it, hand pulling her gun from the modified shoulder-holster under her jacket, the blued steel and cross-hatched grip of the Beretta heavy and comforting. She couldn't kill a goddess with it, but she was pretty sure that it would do some damage to the human servants.

Hitting the patio bricks, she felt her runners slide out on the mossy surface, twisting desperately to keep her balance as two shadows loomed out of the darkness to her right. They joined hands and Jody ducked her head as a wall of fire erupted in front of her, the flames licking closer and closer, the heat crisping the air in her lungs.

The fire reached out for her and consciousness disappeared. The flaming women stepped to either of side of the limp body and bent, each touching the woman's shoulders with their left hands as their right hands remained tightly enmeshed.

The air made a slight popping noise as it closed together to fill the vacuum left by the disappearing trio.

* * *

><p>The tip of the oak branch scored across Vesta's shoulder as she lifted her hand and halted Sam's progress completely. He felt as if his entire body was locked into a vice, the skin squeezed tight over muscle and bone.<p>

Then he was moving again, backwards, hurled into the half-walls of the pens along the long side of the barn, shoulders taking the brunt of the impact, the back of his head smacking hard enough into the timber planks to send a bolt of pain down his neck and back. The oak branch was gone, ripped through his fingers and flung elsewhere, he could feel the bits of damp bark embedded in his palm as he tried to lift himself from the floor.

Fire surrounded him, flames trembling around his face and for an instant, he was back there, in the cage, the laughter of angels ringing in his ears, his skin bubbling and sloughing off in the unbearable, unquenchable heat, his soul unable to stop screaming.

The fire died away and Vesta knelt beside him, her eyes bright with avarice. Her head swooped toward him and he turned his away, eyes closing involuntarily as she licked a long line up the side of his neck and along his cheek, her breathing noisy, puffs of heated air against his skin.

Then she was scrambling back, away from him.

"What's wrong with you?" she hissed accusingly at him.

Sam turned his head back to her slowly, his brow creasing up. "Nothing, I – what – what do you mean?"

He stared at her face, another image doubling over it, the man's face, eyes wide and mouth open in shock. _What are you?_

"You're – there is not one living organ inside of you!" she spat, backing away. "How are you alive!?"

"What?"

He flinched back as she threw her head back and screamed, the noise splitting through the air as the tendons to either side of her neck, along shoulder and down her arms stood out like wires.

"Nooooooooo!"

_Jody one, goddess zero_, he thought dazedly, rolling to one side and peering through the gloom for either one of the oak branches.

"SAMMY!?" Dean's voice boomed out from beneath the metal hatch, but he didn't have the time to set his brother's worries to rest right now.

Fire whompfed into the barn behind the goddess and she turned, snake-fast, Sam noticed blearily, unable to make his body move with any speed. He saw the dark wood a few feet away, closer to the trench and reached out, dragging himself nearer.

"You let the flames be extinguished!"

Jody came to as she landed on the earth floor with a rib-bending thump. She closed her eyes and twisted away from the streams of fire that burst from the goddess' hands, incinerating the virgins to piles of fine, grey ash in seconds.

"You!" The goddess stalked to her, and the sheriff felt a hand hook into the collar of her jacket, almost throttling her as she was pulled to her feet and thrown into the side of an ancient, rusted tractor. Hitting the floor on her hands and knees, she tried to breathe through the lack of air in her chest, her eye caught by a gleam in one of the piles of ash in front and to her right.

* * *

><p>"SAMMY! JODY!" Dean yelled again, his fingers slipping on the nuts as he desperately tried to get them off the bolts, the hard metal edges slick with his blood from multiple cuts. "SONOFABITCH!"<p>

The last nut fell to the ground below and he ducked his head, fingers curling around the iron rungs of the ladder as he slammed his shoulders into the hatch. Above, the bar holding the handles together jangled and jumped in the slot, the hatch moving slightly to one side. He could probably bring it down, he thought, hitting it again.

"For god's sake," he grunted as he looked down at the circle of faces beneath him. "Get the fuck out of the way!"

* * *

><p>Sam dragged himself along the floor, spitting out the dust and bits of straw he seemed to be inhaling. The branch was just a couple of feet away now. He could hear Dean, banging at the hatch from underneath. Could hear Vesta cursing at Jody and the dull, raw sounds of the sheriff being beaten. Just a bit further, he thought, tilting his head to eyeball the branch. Another eighteen inches, he could do that, he'd gone a lot further for a lot less, he could make another fourteen inches.<p>

Worming its way through the back of his mind, the reaction of the goddess wouldn't let go. _What's _wrong_ with you? What _are_ you?_ The thoughts kept looping and he tried to shut them away but they kept creeping back. Something's wrong with you. _It's just the trials, they took a toll, Sam_, his brother's voice joined the others. The blood was burned out. It was purified. _What _are_ you!?_

He felt the cool, moist bark of the branch on the tips of his fingers and sucked in a deep breath, dragging it closer until he could curl his hand around it.

* * *

><p>Jody tried to make her vision come into focus as she knelt in front of the goddess, blood pouring from her nose and running over her mouth, her fingers scrabbling through the piles of ash she'd more or less managed to land on with the last blow. She couldn't work out why the bitch hadn't just snuffed her. <em>No contract<em>. The thought came in a thready wave. _No contract and she has to play by her own rules_. It would give her some time.

She felt the smooth edges of the necklace, her fingers pulling it free of the ashen remains of either Tammy or June, she thought, her nose wrinkling up in distaste, ducking her head and partially riding the next blow with a rolling twist to the side. Two chains, she saw as she scrambled to her knees. And two halves of a single symbol. One for each of them, to control the fire. To take the victims. Two.

"This is _NOT_ happening!" Vesta shrieked out behind her, and Jody pivoted on her knee, looking up at the enraged features of the diminutive redhead.

"Look like it is," she commented, spitting out a mouthful of blood and joining the two halves together.

Flames roared up around her, cold, thick with the scent of burning wood. They took the pain and the injuries, the bruised and swollen flesh, healing them and filling her with a clean, pure energy that felt as if it was infinite.

"Quite a gig for the virgins, then," she murmured, mouth quirking up to one side as she saw Vesta back away. "All this clean, pure fire, better than uppers."

"Don't – you – come – near – me!"

"Why not, sweetheart? You're not afraid of a little pure fire, are ya?"

The clanging from the hatch was getting louder, Jody thought, taking another step toward the goddess as she saw movement through the translucent flames surrounding her. Movement behind Vesta.

The pendant, held in her hand, prickled at her with its vibrancy. She lifted her hands, wondering what the 'on' switch was for blasting out the fire that surrounded her toward something else.

A hollow bonging sound was followed by a triumphant shout.

Sam stood up, swaying unsteadily behind Vesta.

Jody thrust her hands toward the goddess and saw her stumble backward as Sam lifted the branch in his hand and shoved it forward, Dean's head and shoulders jacknifing out of the hole in the ground at the same time.

Fire, white and yellow and gold and red, flared out from the goddess, reaching to the roof of the barn in a towering vortex of tightly spinning heat. The backlash through the pendant knocked the sheriff back, throwing her across the floor as the pendant broke into its halves and detonated.

Dean took one look at the flames licking and engulfing the rafters and ducked back into the hole.

"Everyone out," he barked at the people below, climbing out as Honor started up the ladder, throwing a fast look over his shoulder at his brother. "Sam, you okay?"

Sam blinked at him and nodded. Bruised, he thought. Inside and out, but that was all. He looked around for Jody and walked over to her, sliding an arm behind her shoulders as she sat up.

The barn was on fire, he thought vaguely, the smoke thickening and tickling his throat. Coughing, he sent Jody ahead to the doors, with Honor and Suzy, standing beside Dean as Barb and Neil climbed out.

"That everyone?"

Dean nodded, coughing as well, as he looked around. "Shouldn't be much left if this keeps going."

They both heard the sirens at the same time, turning for the door as the red flashing lights lit up the county road in the darkness. Dean looked at his brother's slow progress.

"You let that little redhead beat you up?"

"Funny. I noticed she didn't have problems putting you in the hole." He accepted his brother's arm around his ribs, and the strength that came with it, and Dean grinned to himself.

* * *

><p>Dean opened the motel room door, one brow lifting as he saw Suzy standing in the hall.<p>

"Hey."

"Hey," she said, peering in past him to wave at Sam and Jody. "I just wanted to say thanks."

Stepping out, Dean pulled the door closed a little. "Figure we're about even."

Her smile was half-hidden as she looked away. "Is Sam the reason you don't look for what you want, Dean?"

He glanced at the door and shook his head. "Not all of it. A part of it," he said quietly. "What I do, what we do, it comes with some conditions."

"So it's nothing but the road and-and this?" she asked, waving a hand vaguely at the motel door.

He shrugged. "What about you? Back to the pure and simple?"

"I don't know," she said, looking up at him. "It seems laughable now, what I was looking for."

"No – it's not," he said. "Maybe just a little high on the expectations."

She didn't say anything, and he touched her shoulder lightly. "I've seen – and done – things that make for nightmares I wouldn't wish on my worst enemies, Suzy. Most of the time, I can't get away from that."

Lifting her head, she met his eyes as he continued, "You were the good dreams – you _are_ the good dreams," he amended, the corner of his mouth lifting a little at his memories.

"I can't go back," she said slowly. "That was – it wasn't good. I guess I'll have to try forward this time."

He looked down at her, wondering if there was anything that would be better looking forward in his life. _Sam well again_, he guessed. _That'd be a start_.

She leaned toward him and kissed him lightly, letting him go before he could react. "Just, take care of yourself, every once in a while, okay?"

"I'll try."

He watched her walk away, blonde hair pulled back into a girlish ponytail and bouncing from side to side as she lengthened her stride. The memories – the good memories – were going to have a last a while, he thought, a little regretfully as he turned back to the room.

* * *

><p>Jody picked up her bag and swung it over her shoulder, Sam glancing at her.<p>

"Heading out?"

"Yeah, I'd tell you boys to stay out of trouble, but … what's the point?" she said, looking at Dean sardonically.

Sam wrapped an arm around her, letting go instantly when she let out a soft yelp. "I thought you weren't getting any pain from those?" he said, his tone only slightly accusing as he looked down at her bandaged forearms. Most of the fire had done little damage but she'd blocked the first blowback with her forearms and had gotten second-degree burns along the backs of them.

"Mostly not, except when someone traps them between me and them," she told him.

"Couldn't have done this without you," Dean said, carefully hugging her one-armed around the waist.

"Yeah, well, what I can say? I'm getting the hang of this."

Sam handed her the laptop bag. "Drive safe."

Stopping on the way to the door, Jody turned around, looking at him. "Sam, you take comfort where you can find it. Don't waste time on might-have-beens."

He glanced at his brother, Dean already over by the other bed, packing his duffel. "I'll try."

"Take care. Of yourself," she said firmly, then looked past his shoulder. "Of him. Of each other."

He nodded, feeling his throat close up unexpectedly as she walked out and pulled the door shut behind her.

_What are you?_

_What's wrong with you?_

_What if the demon blood was still there? What if that was why breaking the contract with God hadn't killed him outright?_

He turned and ran his hands through his hair, dropping onto the end of his bed with a long sigh.

"What's up?" Dean looked at him warily.

"What if there is something wrong with me?" he asked, not wanting to ask it, unable anymore not to. "What if there is something … _really_ wrong."

"You're just crapped out, man," Dean said, not quite dismissively, but close. "You need some rest."

"No. It's more than that." Sam shook his head. "I mean, Vesta said I was practically dead inside – and that guy, the Stetson guy in Ohio, Dean. He asked me _what_ I was!"

"What, and we're taking the word of monsters and mouldy Roman goddesses as gospel now?" his brother asked him, his tone derisive.

Sam looked at him. "Why would they lie?"

"It's probably the trials," Dean said, shrugging. "It's probably some sort of a, you know, after-effect. The contract was broken, Sammy. It might be this is God's way of bitching about it."

Sam's forehead creased up and Dean pushed. "It's not like you're bouncing back from the flu here, I mean you were glowing with friggin' trial juice."

"I don't know."

"Well, what else would it be?"

"Why does it have to be 'something else'?" Sam asked, looking at him. "It's always _something else_. We're always scraping to find some other explanation when maybe it is – just me."

"Oh, c'mon, Sam," Dean said tiredly, turning away.

"I'm a mess, Dean! You know it!" Sam said, hating the way he knew that his brother didn't want to talk about it, never wanted to talk about it. He needed to talk about it. At least once. "And sometimes, I feel like I'm never going to – actually – be alright."

"You will." Dean stopped packing and turned to look at him, his voice deepening. "Alright? 'Cause whatever it is – we'll figure it out."

"Or this is … just the way I am," Sam said, shaking his head. He looked down at the floor, unable to meet his brother's eyes.

Dean heard the despair in his voice. He heard past it, to the memories he knew plagued his brother, many of them the same ones that kept him awake through the deepest watches of the night, bleeding into their waking hours if the room was silent or the road was empty or there was the vacant hiss of the tape in the car.

The fear had never gone, even when Sam had tried to convince them both that the blood had. _Outcast. Unclean. Tainted_. He knew those thoughts circled his brother like endlessly patient vultures, waiting for moments like these to strike, for Sam to be vulnerable. To be afraid of what lived inside him.

And the worst part was, that this time, he was right.

"I can't," he murmured, face screwing up with the decision. Lose his brother or let Sam lose his mind, he thought, turning to look at him. He would've happily died before choosing either, but that option was not on the table.

"Listen to me," he said, moving to the side of the bed and sitting down. "It's not you, Sam –"

Sam straightened up, his gaze lifting and staring straight ahead. "I wouldn't do that, Dean."

Dean heard the lower pitch of his brother's voice and felt his guts twist up. "He deserves to know!"

"Your brother is not ready," the angel said through Sam's mouth, turning to look at him with Sam's face, but not his brother's expression. "If he ejects me, he will not recover –"

"Well, dammit, Zeke, how much longer!? How much longer we gotta keep playing this?"

"Not much longer."

Dean laughed, the huffing exhale mocking.

"I promise you that," the angel overrode it.

"What?" Sam asked, and Dean looked up at the change in his brother's voice.

"What?"

"What? What's not me?"

Fucking angel was going to trip him up without even fucking well trying, he thought, trying to get his thoughts back what he'd been thinking of saying to his brother. "Nothing – I just, I meant that, if there is something wrong, it's not your fault. We'll deal with it. You just gotta have a little faith, Sammy." He stood, going back to his duffel at the end of the bed and shoving the rest of his stuff into it.

Sam stood as well. "Dean …"

"Yeah?" He couldn't bring himself to look at him, keeping his hands moving and his eyes fixed on the bag.

"Never mind." Sam turned away, picking up his bag and scooping his jacket from the bed. He walked to the door and went out, pulling it closed behind him.

Dean stopped moving, his fingers digging into the soft leather bag under them as he let his head drop and his eyes close, the pain in his brother's voice slicing through him again.

The angel was listening, he realised. Maybe some of the time. Maybe all of the time. But listening to everything he said – _or was about to say_ – to his brother. The prickling sensation at the back of his neck intensified for a moment. He hadn't asked Cas enough about the angel's possession. Hadn't wanted to talk about his fears and doubts. Well, that was sure as shit going to bite him on the ass now.

Sam had been like this before. When the devil had risen and everything he'd done had come crashing down on him. He remembered his brother trying to apologise, over and over for his mistakes – for his choices – back then, and he'd never allowed him to. He couldn't take hearing Sam's reasons or non-reasons. Couldn't take the constant, grinding, flaying pain of that final choice. _Ruby_. Instead of his family. He still couldn't, even knowing that not letting that out, not getting it out and settled between them back then had left a poisoned, festering wound that would not heal now.

Figure it out, he thought sardonically to himself. How the fuck would they ever figure out all the mountains of crap decisions, crap choices, crap mistakes that lay between them like the fucking Grand Canyon? Even if Zeke was on the level and one of the good guys and doing what he promised he would do – and Sam was healed, there would still be all the wounds and scars and barely-hidden pain there, waiting to trip them up, to pour into another crack or fissure or great, big gaping fucking hole.

_You knew it was the wrong choice when you made it_, the small voice that had been silent for a while reminded him. _You knew it wasn't what he would have wanted_.

_He wasn't ready_, he argued back, zipping up his duffel and picking up the gear bag.

_That's not it_. The voice was quiet but adamant.

_I wasn't ready_, he admitted unwillingly, stopping and leaning his forehead against the motel room's door. _I'm still not ready_.

_Protect your brother._


	17. Chapter 17 A Distant Call of Horns

**Chapter 17 A Distant Call of Horns**

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

The war has begun.

_Dean looked around the dark edges of the room, pivoting slowly on one heel. "What the hell does that mean?"_

They have polarised to their causes. A new serpent moves between them, whispering secrets to them and corrupting their intentions. Stop it.

"_For – speak English, maybe I'd have a chance," he shouted in frustration. "I mean, are we talking metaphorical? Literal? What?!"_

You are clean.

"_What?"_

_The darkness vanished and he was surrounded by light, piercing through his skin, his flesh, his bones, reaching every cell and every molecule. Dean stood rigid in the centre of the room, unable to breathe or think or feel. He saw himself._

Flawed_. Yes, he'd known that. _Afraid and afraid of his fear_. He'd known that too, had thought of it as a weakness he couldn't let anyone see. He became abruptly aware that he wasn't really looking as himself, something held him apart and he looked at the man he knew he was without emotion or investment, seeing the cracks and repairs from the outside, seeing the strengths in searing clarity for the first time as well._

Failing you, like I've failed every other godforsaken thing that I care about!_ His words to Castiel slid spectrally into the cool and untouchable mental state._

_It wasn't true, he saw. Responsibility and guilt had wrapped themselves around him tightly, cutting off his ability to see where they ended and he began. If I'd only …ran through his memories like a molten river, cauterising the memories, distorting and twisting them with the heat and poison of its venom. Standing outside, he saw it stretch back through the years, into his childhood._

Hunters are never kids. I never was_. He'd said that and he'd meant it at the time. Another fallacy. Another way to make the inexplicable make sense, at least to him. To the child he'd been, once upon a time._

_Riven through, shattered and beaten down and crushed too many times, the child was still there, looking at him through wide, green eyes, afraid but filled with hope … and with a purpose instilled day-by-day by the father he'd loved. The mistakes, simple, childish mistakes of not seeing far enough ahead, not recognising consequences that an adult would've seen easily, those were still to come, and each one would do some damage to the child, to the hope._

Do you see?

_I see._

"Dean? Dean! DEAN!"

He opened his eyes groggily, pulling away slightly from the hand that was gripping his shoulder, making out his brother as a slowly resolving blur beside him.

"What?"

"I – are you alright?" Sam asked, his voice filled with worry that woke Dean faster than anything could've done. "I couldn't wake you."

"Huh," he said, sitting up and knuckling his eyes with one hand, peering up at Sam and forcing himself to give a nonchalant grin. "Catching up, that's all."

Sam glanced at the empty bottle on the nightstand and back to him and he followed the glance with a shrug. "Needed some help to get started."

"You awake?"

"More or less," he said, pushing aside the covers and swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. "What's up?"

"Gotta case, angels," Sam said, taking a step back as he looked suspiciously at his brother. "Some kind of show down, looks like."

"Alright, I'll be down in a minute," Dean said, looking at the floor for his clothes.

"Dean – you sure –"

"M'fine, Sammy," he cut him off, catching sight of the clock on the nightstand and hiding the surprise he felt at the time. Eleven. No wonder Sam was having a meltdown. "Just a – a knock-on effect, you know. Didn't get much the last few weeks. And, uh, you know, too many painkillers have a – a cumulative effect …" He held up his still-bandaged fingers as evidence. "Must've needed the extra hours."

"Yeah."

Sam sounded unconvinced and Dean didn't blame him. It was his first nine-hour sleep in probably five years.

"Be down in a sec," he said again, hoping that was enough to reassure his brother as he leaned down and hooked his jeans with one hand. "Where's this case?"

It was the quickest way to reroute any conversation with Sam and it worked again.

"Caribou, Wyoming," he said, turning and walking to the door. "About eight hours, right?"

"About that," Dean agreed, getting up as Sam pulled the door closed and sitting down again as he heard his brother's footsteps receding down the hall.

Lifting his hand, he looked at it carefully. The ragged and torn ends of his fingertips, where he'd repeatedly cut them on the nuts of the hatch bolts, didn't hurt anymore. It'd been four days, but they'd ached like bitches last night. And now they didn't. At all.

He pulled off the first bandage, looking at the smooth, unmarked skin and nail end with a sinking sensation in his stomach. Dragging off the rest, he could see that all of them looked perfectly healed – or actually, he thought uncomfortably, as if they'd never been injured – he didn't know what to make of it. The order's healing cream was good, but never overnight-good. And the scars were usually there, if you knew where to look.

Thinking of something else, he stood, pulled his jeans on impatiently and walked to the mirror on the back of the closet door. Even in the soft light of the frosted overhead, he could see that the cut over his cheek had healed as well, a fine, white line there, where the screwdriver had slipped, but nothing else. The bruising that had surrounded it was gone. He turned around and looked at his shoulders. The bruises there had gone as well, the sight only confirming what his body had already told him. That hatch had been iron and had weighed close to eighty pounds and he'd hammered the crap out of his back and shoulders trying to get the bar loose. There was no sign of the livid colour that had been there when he'd gone to bed.

A fragment of the dream returned and he blinked, brows drawing together at the disconnected image in his mind of himself, much younger, beating the trunk of the Impala with a pry bar. The memory was just a memory, without the agonising emotion that had filled it … before.

_What the fuck? _

Grabbing a clean tee shirt from the drawer of the bureau, he walked out of the room and down to the bathroom. Everything had hurt when they'd returned to the bunker and he'd eaten and crashed, not doing much in the last couple of days but drinking steadily to drive out the endless, repetitious cycle of guilt-driven emotion as he'd gone over and over the conversation he'd had with his brother. He reached out and turned on the taps in the shower recess, letting his jeans drop to the floor.

Not ready to let him go, not willing to believe that it might be a better choice for Sam, instead of living; having some chance of getting what he'd wanted, back when those things had been clear – or clearer – to both of them. The hot water sluiced the dried and salty sweat from his skin, but his thoughts remained tangled.

_Save your brother._

That's all he'd ever tried to do, he thought miserably, leaning his forehead against the tiles. All he'd ever wanted to do. Keep Sammy safe and somehow find a way for him to have the normal life he'd wanted. Had he sabotaged that? From time to time? Not wanting to be alone?

He wasn't sure. Looking back down the road was something he tried to avoid, especially looking back at the memories of the events that had gotten them to here. He didn't want to face the possibility that he'd acted out of his own, selfish needs instead of thinking of what was best for his brother. He didn't want to face the certainty that nothing he could've done would have changed anything either.

The water stopped abruptly as he wrenched at the taps, the final few drips hitting the tiled floor from the rose and rivulets running off him as he leaned one-armed against the slick wall.

_It is not blame that falls on you, Dean, it is Fate._

Cas had said that, he thought, lifting his head and wiping his hand over his face, shaking off the droplets that trickled like tears over his cheeks and dripped from his nose and jaw.

Was it his fate to be forever doing too little, too late? Was that what he could look forward to?

_You are clean._

That voice, that thought, that he neither heard with his ears nor heard – exactly – in his mind, but somehow knew came from outside himself, cut through the doubt and recriminatory thoughts and he jerked backwards, one foot sliding out on the slick floor, catching himself with a hand slapped against the wall behind him.

Moving cautiously out of the shower recess, Dean didn't think the statement had been referring to the recent shower. His eyes screwed shut as for a fractional second they filled with a blinding light. Then behind the lids it was dark again and he opened them cautiously, looking around the bathroom. There was nothing there.

Just need some coffee, he told himself, forcing away his unease. He grabbed a towel and dried off fast. That's all, some coffee, some food and he'd be fine.

* * *

><p><em><strong>US-26 W, Nebraska<strong>_

"Why would they pop out of the woodwork now?" Sam asked, his gaze fixed on the file on his lap, the flashlight beam shielded with one hand. "This is brass band stuff, I mean, it seemed like they were attempting to be discreet –"

The sudden silence made Dean turn to look at his brother and he felt his stomach sink as he watched Sam's features become smooth and cold.

"Thought I was gonna let you know when it was time to talk?" he said sourly to the angel in his brother.

"I thought you would appreciate a report of the progress that's been made with Sam," Ezekiel returned, his tone mild and without rebuke. "He has … recharged, as he put it … his healing has been swift."

"So he's better?"

"Yes. Sam is much improved," the angel said, turning to look at him. "It shouldn't be much longer."

"Okay," Dean said, catching the movement in his peripheral vision. "You know you said the same thing to me last week?"

"As I told you when we met – it will take time," Ezekiel reminded him.

There was no way around the angel's stone-walling, he knew. He felt his hands tighten on the wheel in frustration. "Okay, well, then go. Heal. I'd like my brother back, please."

The hazel eyes that were not Sam's, not at this moment anyway, remained on him and he flicked an irritated glance at the angel.

"I am uncomfortable with this trip," Ezekiel said slowly. "Investigating crimes involving angels – or anything involving angels – puts me, and therefore Sam, at risk."

Dean looked at the road. The angel had been listening. Again. "Well, family business, Zeke, okay? If we ignored this, Sam'd think there was something fishy goin' on."

"Then I hope you will be discreet," the angel said, the tone stiff.

"So, uh, you pick up all the conversations Sam has? With everyone?" he asked casually. "With me?"

"No," Ezekiel said, his voice cool and disinterested. "A word, here and there. I have better things to do with my time than eavesdrop on humans."

And that was a lie, Dean thought, keeping his face impassive. "Huh, well, here's the thing –"

"– you know, I was gonna say, it seemed like it was getting really quiet out there, you know? Not a peep from the angels, Boyle's off the air, stopped recruiting, I guess."

Dean let out his breath softly, forcing his hands to loosen on the wheel. The angel, like all the others, had a distinctly human sense of timing when it came to answering questions it didn't want to. He glanced at his brother.

"Guess they weren't looking for that surprise package," he said.

"Yeah. Maybe," Sam allowed, his gaze caught by the road sign that flashed by.

"What?"

"That sign said 'Fort Collins, fifty miles'."

"So?"

Looking back then at Dean, Sam said, "So last time I looked, like twelve seconds ago, Fort Collins was a hundred miles!"

_Goddammit_. "Well, you know –"

"I wasn't asleep, Dean! I was right here, talking to you!" He hunched down in the seat, his hands curling into fists. "And I've told you, this isn't the first time – there are blank spots, I'm missing things, missing time. Things move – or I move – or we move and it's not me micro-napping."

Dean stared at the black road unwinding in front of them. "Well, like I've said –"

"Yeah, I know! The trials. I know. I heard you," Sam snapped, shaking his head. "I heard you when you said it last week. And the week before that. And the week before that!"

"Sam, I know it's freaky –"

"No, you don't know, Dean!" Sam ground out, his face hard. "You don't know because these things don't happen to you – they happen to me, every single fucking time!"

"Sam –"

"What?! You're gunna tell me I'm imagining that? That I'm just like you? That it's all good in the 'hood?"

Dean exhaled gustily. "No."

"Then what?" Sam said, his volume lowering slightly at the instant capitulation of his brother.

"When you were riding that last wave," Dean said slowly, feeling his way. "Your temp was out of control, man. I mean, I had to get you into an ice-bath, you remember?"

"Yeah, so?"

"So, maybe some of the wiring got a little cooked and your brain's figuring out a way around the problem?" he said, keeping his voice calm, ignoring the way his palms slid a little on the wheel. He'd been looking up possibilities for the last four weeks, any kind of rational explanation for the unexplainable and he could only hope Sam would buy it. It happened to regular people.

Sam didn't respond, and he turned his head, catching his brother's thoughtful expression.

"What I'm sayin' is, this could just be a side-effect, not a – a symptom," he added. "You know, just a physical thing that'll heal up, with time."

Sam let out his breath, nodding reluctantly. "Maybe."

Feeling the tension leaking out of his shoulders, Dean kept his gaze on the road.

"If you knew, I mean, knew there was something wrong, you'd tell me, wouldn't you?" Sam asked suddenly, turning to look at his brother. "Straight away, right?"

It took every particle of self-control he had to keep from reacting, forcing himself to look at Sam, forcing his features into a mask of disbelief. "Of course I would, dammit, Sam –"

"Okay," Sam said, looking away. "Sorry – it's just – I can't – sorry."

"Damn straight sorry," Dean muttered, looking back at the road and feeling his heart shrivel up in his chest.

The silence stretched out incrementally in the black car, thick with everything that they were thinking and neither could say.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Caribou, Wyoming<strong>_

Not even the soft light of the setting sun could make the weathered watering hole look anything other than an ugly, squat building stuck in the middle of a gravel and dirt lot, Dean thought as he pulled in, stopping to show the uniform at the driveway his tin and easing the Impala through the pot-holes and corrugations to park near the coroner's meat wagon.

Crime tape fluttered in the small breeze and there were still a dozen people moving around the scene, taking photographs of tyre treads imprinted in the soft mud and, he noted with some surprise, carrying out a body, unmistakable in its zipped black bag.

"Thought they'd be done with most of this," he remarked to Sam as they got out.

"Big scene," Sam returned noncommittally, pulling his badge from his coat as another uniformed officer approached them.

"Ah, one of your guys is here already," the officer said, glancing at both and jerking his head toward the interior of the roadhouse.

For a second, the first thing that came into Dean's mind was Bobby, and he swallowed hard against the knowledge that it was impossible. He tucked his badge back into his coat, ducking his head as he walked past the deputy and into the dim, neon-lit interior of the bar, forcing himself to think of what other hunter could be working the case as well.

When he looked up and saw the angel, his misgivings grew exponentially.

"Ah, my colleagues," Castiel said to the bald man he'd been interviewing, turning to them. "Agents."

"Agent," Sam echoed with a grin.

"Cas, what the hell are you doing?" Dean cut in repressively. Between the fact that Zeke had been ready to exit his brother the last time the not-anymore-angel had been around, and the even less palatable fact that Cas was number one on the angels' most wanted list, his neck was prickling like a devil and he wanted his friend to be several hundred miles distant – from everything, for preference.

"Um," Cas said, leaning closer and lowering his voice conspiratorially. "I still have the badge you gave me."

"Yeah." Dean stared at him. "Uh, what the hell are you doing?"

Blinking as he belatedly registered the hunter's lack of welcome, Cas gestured around the room. "The murders were all over the television," he explained. "I thought I might be of help."

Sam glanced at Dean. "Yeah, but Cas, you know this is an angel situation, right? I mean, you're pretty much most wanted, aren't you?"

"Yeah," Dean added, trying to dial down his disapproval. "And you were living the life … early retirement, working your way up the Gas'n'Sip ladder?"

Cas nodded. "I know, but this – if angels are slaughtering each other, I have to do what I can to help. It's a risk we should be willing to take, don't you think?" He looked questioningly from Sam to Dean. "You told me that."

Ducking his head, Dean bit back the few choice expletives the angel's sudden turn-around into moral duty instantly popped into his head.

Cas turned to Sam, offering a handful of crime scene photographs to him. "These angels were butchered," he said, as Sam took the photos and began to leaf through them. "Much more violence was used than was required."

"More than one or two butchers at work too," Sam said, passing the photographs to his brother. "Another faction?"

"Hit squad," Dean said, glancing through the sheaf in his hand. "Bartholomew's?"

"Or the opposite team?" Sam said, looking around the destruction in the room.

_The war has begun._

Dean blinked at the memory, staring hard at the photographs in his hand.

"Cas, before everyone ended up down here, how many factions were there in Heaven?"

The angel looked at him in surprise. "Many," he said slowly, as if he hadn't considered the chaos that had filled the divine plane prior to Metatron's spell. "I don't know who led them or what their intentions were, but there was a great deal of in-fighting even before …"

"Exactly," Dean said, looking at the charred outlines on the rough board floors. "So, this could be the start of some kind of angelic war? Down here?"

Sam frowned. "I thought they'd all be trying to get home?"

Cas glanced at him, then looked back at Dean. "Not necessarily. I wasn't privy to the collaborations in Heaven, not even when Naomi claimed to be trying to help us, but I believe there were some, at least, who were attempting to resume Raphael's vision of Paradise on earth." He looked around the room. "Even if they are pursuing the same goal, the archangels have gone. The framework that kept us functioning for millennia has gone."

"So the top jobs are open to all comers?" Dean asked him.

"Yes." The angel drew in a deep breath, his voice firming. "Whoever they are, we'll find them."

He walked away, and Dean scowled after him. "Oh, '_we'll_' find them, that's great."

Sam stiffened and Dean turned to look at him, wearily noting the disapproval on his brother's face.

"You got more information about these factions?" he asked Zeke bluntly.

"No, I was – I was assigned duties that kept me away from the political manoeuvrings of my brethren over the last century," Ezekiel said. "But if the factions are gathering to war on each other, this is the last place we should be."

"Duly noted," Dean said sourly, turning away to follow Cas. "You want to avoid anyone's notice? Go hide yourself deep."

* * *

><p>Leaning back in the chair at the small table, Dean wondered how the hell he was going to convince Cas to leave … again, while keeping Sam in the dark and figuring out what the angels were up to at the same time. The cold, gently bubbling beer slid down his throat with no more effect than water.<p>

"It is good to be working together again," Cas said, tipping up his bottle and smiling widely from Dean to Sam. "And I see why these establishments are so popular," he added, looking around at the busy bar, the click of balls on the pool tables behind them blending in with the soft music playing on the jukebox. "It's much more pleasant to imbibe these liquids in the company of others."

Dean tilted forward, a memory of the angel staggering around a motel room and holding his head flashing into his mind. "Yeah, well a few beers is generally speaking a better choice than an entire liquor store, Cas," he said dryly.

Cas nodded. "It is okay, me joining with you?"

"Why wouldn't it be okay?" Sam asked, his forehead furrowing. "If you were on their radar, they'd be here by now, wouldn't they?"

Dean hid a grimace and looked at the angel. "You know, Cas, are you sure you're ready to jump back into all this? I mean, it seemed to me that you'd actually found some peace?"

Cas looked down at the bottle in his hand. "I could continue to hide, Dean," he agreed readily, looking up at the man as he continued, "But it was you who made me see the difference between standing up for what was right and pretending that I couldn't see it, even when I knew what I was doing was wrong."

_Now_ the angel took all the crap he'd spouted at him on board, Dean thought with a flash of annoyance. Perfect.

"I'm a part of this," Cas continued, lifting his bottle and clinking it lightly against Dean's. "Like it or not."

"Well, we have to figure out who we're up against," Sam said, looking from Cas to his brother. "How many groups are we talking about? Will they end up fighting together?"

"According to April," Cas said, putting his beer on the table. "Bartholomew wants to retake Heaven – once his following is large enough."

"So the angels don't realise that the spell can't be reversed?" Dean asked, rubbing a hand over his forehead. "I mean – how do they retake Heaven, no matter how big their army is, without wings? Or Grace? Or whatever it is that gives them the boost to get back upstairs?"

"So far as I can tell, I was the only angel to Fall without my Grace," Cas corrected him. "The Divine plane, like the Accursed one, has other entries. It is a matter of finding them, of course."

"Heaven's got back doors?" Dean stared at him.

"For some," Cas clarified. "There are conditions."

"Yeah, naturally."

"I'm gonna get us another round," Sam said, looking at his bottle.

"No, I'll get it," Cas said, finishing his beer and getting up. "The phrase is 'same again', isn't it?"

"That'll do," Dean agreed. He watched the angel wander off in the direction of the bar. "One beer, he's hammered."

On the other side of the table, Sam straightened up and Dean looked at him, exhaling softly as he saw Ezekiel's still-disapproving expression.

"What are you going to do about this?"

"About Cas?" he asked.

"He is a beacon, Dean," Ezekiel said, his tone sharp. "He will pull every angel for miles down on our heads."

"Hasn't seemed to so far," Dean argued mildly, his gaze flicking to the bar. "How 'bout we cut to the chase and you level with me? What is it that you're so damned afraid of?"

"I told you," the angel said, a very human impatience riddling Sam's voice. "When I chose to answer your prayer and heal Sam, I chose sides. I am not in good standing with certain of my brothers now."

Dean studied him. "Okay, well, you know what? Cas isn't in 'good standing' with any angel, but here he is, ass on the line, fighting the fight. So, I'm kind of curious as to why a good soldier would be trying to sit this one out?"

Ezekiel turned his head as Cas came back toward them, three bottles held in his hands. "Here we go," he said, plunking the bottles on the table with just enough force to ensure a thick foam when they were opened. "Three – uh, brewskies."

"I'm going to get something from the car," Ezekiel said, getting up.

Dean took the bottle from Cas automatically, watching his brother walk across the room. Cas had said that Ezekiel was a good soldier, a good angel. He might be vulnerable, trying to protect Sam, expending his energy on trying to heal him. But it struck him that Zeke was feeling more than worried about being found by other angels. He was scared. And that wasn't making a whole lotta sense.

He sucked in a breath and twisted the top on the bottle, holding it in place as the first fizz dissipated. The one person he couldn't ask was the half-human angel sitting next to him.

* * *

><p>In the darkness of the parking lot, the angel stopped beside the black car, leaning against the side and staring at the shadows suspiciously.<p>

He would be found, he knew. Out in the open like this, even hidden within the vessel, sooner or later he would slip up and be found and then he would be forced to run. Nothing was going to go as he'd hoped.

"Some things exceed our wildest dreams."

The voice came from behind him, followed by a breathy chuckle. The angel turned to see a short, rotund man walking toward him, smiling with his mouth but not his eyes.

"Who are you?"

"You know who I am, Gadreil," the man said softly. "As I know who you are. Even within Lucifer's vessel, your signature stands out, my friend."

"Why are you here?" Gadreil asked impatiently. "Your work is done. You have unmade Heaven. Do you come to gloat over the confusion and violence you've fostered?"

Metatron turned away, looking into the darkness surrounding the parking lot. "The spell was powerful, beyond my expectations," he said, glancing back at the angel behind him. "It opened every door. I had no idea you were still imprisoned."

Gadreil stared at him. "Every angel was cast down and many are dead."

"No doubt why you chose to hide behind the name and reputation of Ezekiel," Metatron said, turning back to look at him. "Prudent, particularly with the company you are keeping."

"What do you know of them?"

"What we all do, I suppose," the portly scribe said with a sigh. "A little more perhaps since it was they who found me in my exile."

"What do you want of me, Metatron?" Gadreil looked back at the bar's door. He would be missed soon.

"You are free, Gadreil," the angel said to him sharply. "Thanks to me. It broke His heart to discover your sin, you know, brother. I was there. He trusted you above all others and you betrayed that trust. Protect the Garden. Your only task. And yet you failed and you let Evil in, corrupting His efforts."

Gadreil scowled at him. "I let in my brother – that was all!"

"But Lucifer whispered in their ears and innocence was lost and who could be blamed? Trust not thy brother, Gadreil," Metatron said, shrugging. "At least, not most of them."

He looked at the bowed head of the fallen and made a small noise of irritation in his throat. "Done. Gone. Finished."

Gadreil looked up at the flat tone. "They will strike me down if they find me. Is that your plan too?"

"Of course not," Metatron said, gesturing briskly at the darkness. "They plot and scheme to get back into Heaven but there is no way for any to reclaim what is mine. Not for armies, not even for the Host were Michael still around to lead it."

"No," he continued. "I am rebuilding Heaven and what I need – what I want – is loyal, skilled soldiers. The Spheres remain, binding reality to reality, they need angels to keep that balance held, the harmonics … tuned. Would you take back your reputation, Gadreil? Take your place in Heaven as God envisioned it? Stand with me?"

"Abaddon is moving here as well," Gadreil told him reluctantly. "This vessel has heard the King of Hell claim that she wants to overrun it."

"Better if we're not here, then, isn't it?" Metatron said, watching him. "I do understand that this is a big decision, Gadreil. I will come again, in a short while, to discuss it further with you."

He looked at the tall vessel. "You are visible within him. You should probably do something about that, before too long."

The air swirled as he vanished, a faint pop as it rushed together to fill the space he'd occupied. Gadreil stared at the black car beside him. Aside from the vessel's physical injuries, the mind he kept locked away was also wounded. He had only examined the recent memories of Sam Winchester. He thought he needed to go back further.

Climbing the steps back to the bar, he wondered what to tell Sam's brother. Suspicion and doubt existed in the man with the same natural ease as breath. He pushed open the door, looking through the red-lit haze to the table they'd been. Dean sat there alone, and Gadreil felt a wash of relief at the sight.

"Where is Castiel?" he asked as he approached the table.

Dean looked at him expressionlessly. "He left."

"I'm glad to hear that."

"Sam's gonna wonder what the hell he was doing when all this was going on," Dean reminded him coldly. "Better think of something to tell him. He's already noticed you popping in and out whenever you feel like it."

The rebuke in the man's voice was obvious and Gadreil refrained from a response. He looked around and nodded, getting up and going to the restroom.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

Sam leaned back in the chair, running a hand through his hair as he looked down at the laptop.

"Any word from Cas?" he asked his brother. Dean glanced up from the other end of the table and shook his head.

"No."

"And we're not … worried about him? Taking off like that? It's not like he knows what he's doing, on his own."

Dean gave up on the file in front of him and straightened a little in the chair. "It was what he wanted, Sam," he said, trying to make this lie stick. "He's been all over the map with his wings clipped, he'll be fine." He gestured to the laptop. "What have you got?"

"Obits." Sam looked back at the screen. "The bikers."

Getting up, Dean walked around the length of the table to look over his brother's shoulder. "'Red Dawg' Morrison. Not a surprise."

"Hmm," Sam murmured. "But not the rest. He was a family guy, big in the PTA, played Santa at the hospital for Christmas."

Dean slid a sideways look at him. "You think he should've been racketeering in his home town, Sam? Bit of a generalisation."

Sam grimaced and shook his head. "No, that's not it. He was in the club for years, but get this. The whole club was baptized together, three months ago."

Dean looked around and grabbed the chair next to Sam, pulling it closer and sitting down. "Alright, not the usual thing. Born-again bikers."

He peered closely at the photograph on the screen. "Can you make that bigger?"

"What?" Sam looked at the photograph and zoomed in on one of the biker's jackets. "'Boyle's Boys'," he said softly. "As in the Reverend Boyle, I guess."

"Interesting demographic to hit," Dean mused, staring at the screen. "So Bartholomew was definitely behind the biker gang – what about the other side?"

"Cops have ID'ed six of the bodies as being a part of the Melody Ministry Glee Club," Sam said, mouth quirking up at his brother's expression. "Based in Tennessee but on the road for about eight months of the year, 'sharing the joy', according to their web-site, which was taken down two days after the attack."

"Lemme guess, bunch of people with no priors for anything," Dean said, his lip curling up.

"About that," Sam agreed. "All singles, no families, no leads. They jumped in their bus and took off, and that part seemed to be normal, but they never made their scheduled stops once they got past Oklahoma."

"So more angel infestation, but a different group."

"Looks like." Sam nodded and opened a new frame on the screen. "Kevin's been looking at the tablet, but most of these factions emerged pretty recently, so we're not going to get a lot of information about them from that."

Shaking his head, Dean leaned on the table. "No, what we need from the tablet is the instruction manual to shut 'em all back up there."

"In the meantime?"

Dean looked down at the situation room, his eyes narrowed slightly. "Cas said there were a lot of factions. Can you rig up some of kind search on attacks like those?" he asked his brother. "Something that'll ping us if a bunch of followers go head to head?"

"Probably," Sam said. "It won't give us much more info than we've already got."

"No," Dean agreed. "But it'll let us know if they start getting more enthusiastic about wiping each other out."

* * *

><p>In the depths of Sam's mind, under his conscious and hidden within the stratification of his subconscious, the angel listened. Metatron would know of the factions, he considered. If the scribe showed himself again.<p>

* * *

><p><em><strong>Salt Lake City, Utah<strong>_

Cas looked around the room with a soft sigh of satisfaction. It was a room he could've been in a hundred times, just the one bed, but everything else the same, the cheap décor reassuring in its familiarity.

"Okay," he murmured to himself, walking to the side of the bed and kneeling. "I'm … unfamiliar with this end of the process," he said, his voice a little louder. "And, of course, no one may be listening …" He opened his eyes as he considered that possibility. "Um … but I do need assistance."

After several minutes of silence, in the room and in his mind, he decided to try another position. Climbing onto the bed, he tucked his legs into a crossed lotus and rested the backs of his hands on his knees, thumb tips just touching his fingertips, head tipped back and eyes closed.

"I have questions … and there seem to be no answers."

Outside the room, he could distantly hear the traffic on the road below, the rumble of the trucks on the highway beyond that. Somewhere close to the windows, pigeons were cooing to one another. And in the motel, several rooms away perhaps, there were the sounds of a television show. But there was no answer in his mind.

There were many, many occasions when humans received no response to their prayers either, he thought, getting off the bed and looking around the room, his senses stretched to determine east.

Many of their prayers were nonsensical, however, demands for things that would not help their spiritual lack nor their quest to become part of a greater universe. He wasn't entirely sure his own requests were any better.

Kneeling on the floor, he stretched out his arms in front of him, forehead just resting on the carpet.

"I wouldn't presume to ask, if I weren't desperate, but I need help," he said softly to his knees. Was that another human failing? Praying for help in the final hour? Would his request be ignored because of his desperation?

Help in this instance was not for himself, he thought. It was for humanity, the chosen creation. Would that cut any ice with anyone, now?

Free will. It had been a double-edged sword he'd had no idea how to handle, he thought as he waited. The ability to chose his own course of action. The consequences of which had devastated not only the only home he'd ever known but the planet to which he'd been exiled. Perhaps Dean was right. Perhaps there were some things that no atonement, no penance could make up for. Dean had said it, to him. 'Sorry' just didn't cut it.

He got to his feet, his ears ringing a little with the depth of silence that seemed to be growing in the room. Standing upright, Cas spread his arms out to either side.

"I'm lost."

He could admit to that. He had no idea of what to do or where to go. Everything he'd thought of led to a dead end, so far as he could see. The angels who had fallen would not believe that he had been a dupe. Not after what he'd done previously. Not after whatever lies Naomi had spread when she'd needed him, rewired into a concealed weapon. Even if one would give him the benefit of doubt, he thought that they were all so fixated on their own survival, they couldn't see what needed to be done.

And perhaps he didn't either, he thought, lying on the bed, hands over his eyes.

"I need your guidance."

He didn't even know to whom he was sending these prayers. His Father had been silent and absent for too long now. His brothers wanted to kill him. Even his friends – and he used the term gingerly, understanding that despite the forgiveness and the genuine distress he'd sensed in Dean, he hadn't held up his end of that relationship, had repeatedly, in fact, chipped away at the man's trust in him – did not want him around.

_When Sam was doing the trials to seal up Hell, it messed him up. Okay? The third one nearly killed him. If I'd let him finish, it would have. He's still messed up, bad._

Cas frowned as he remembered the fear in Dean's eyes, the torn expression on his face.

_Look, I got to do anything I can to get him back. Now, if that means that we keep our distance from you for a little while, then ... then I don't have a choice. I don't feel good about it, but I don't have a choice. It's great to have your help, Cas. Okay, but we just can't work together._

There was nothing to suggest that Dean thought he would screw them up, he realised belatedly. He'd left the bar, the city, thinking that his being there would somehow endanger Sam, but looking at the memory again, he realised that Dean had looked … and had spoken … as if he'd been under duress. Not because of the danger to Sam, categorically speaking, but because of a danger that something else would effect.

_I don't have a _choice_._

Over the years, Cas had seen that his friend would do anything to keep his brother safe – or if not safe, then supported, he revised, remembering Detroit and the conversation there.

How did that affect Dean?

_Leverage_, the answer came to him immediately. Perfect, inarguable leverage.

He stood up and walked restlessly across the room. Dean had said that Ezekiel was helping them, helping to heal Sam. The angel was one of the finest in Heaven, honourable, without the shadings of deception and self-regard that so many had now, including, he admitted, himself. There should have been no danger to Sam from him.

More questions. Still no answers. Cas dropped to his knees by the bed, bowing his head and clasping his hands together, clearing his mind completely.

"Please … hear my prayer."

The silence throbbed loudly against his ears and he let out his breath slowly, feeling his faith trickling away with the air from his lungs. He'd had no faith, he acknowledged unwillingly. For millennia, he'd lived as he'd been made to, obedient without question, convinced of a love he couldn't feel through habit. He'd had his proof and faith was impossible with evidence. Only the creatures surrounding him, the vessel he wore, were capable of believing without proof, their souls feeling love and accepting it as real, no matter it could not be measured or verified or proven.

_I don't know how humans do it_, he thought wearily. And perhaps that was why they succeeded, where he would only fail.

He got to his feet, leaning on the edge of the bed as his knees creaked. Another thing that was taking a long time to get used to. The limitations of his vessel had rarely been more apparent than now.

In the corner of the room, the blank screen of the television reflected his image back to him and he sighed, walking over to it and pressing the power button. Nothing happened. Cas stared at it hopelessly.

"Try plugging it in," a voice said, muffled through the closed door of the room.

Swinging around, he walked to the door and opened it, looking down at the small-framed woman standing outside. Large eyes looked up at him from a heart-shaped face, framed in a loose tangle of light-coloured hair. The drab khaki and olive uniform she wore bore the insignia of a park ranger, over the right breast.

"Surely that wasn't the answer you were seeking?" she asked him, her gaze cutting past him to the dead television.

"You're an angel."

"Muriel," she told him. Her eyes met his and he saw them widen. "Castiel?"

He smiled and she spun around, back to the car that was parked outside the room.

"No, wait –" Cas called desperately, stepping out through the door. "Please! Just hear me out."

She stopped, shoulders hunching. "It cannot be known that I have even seen you."

"I just need a moment –"

"No!"

"Please …" Cas looked at her, taking another step closer. "I just need information – I will not – compromise – you."

"You already have." Muriel turned back to him slowly. "What kind of information?"

* * *

><p><em><strong>Tesuque, New Mexico<strong>_

Cloud was building over the mountain range to the east, and Forrester watched it from the veranda of the house, his breath coming out in puffs of white, mingling with the steam rising from the cup he held.

"I do hope you're not expecting the mountains to protect you?"

He turned without hurry to look at the woman standing a few feet away, on the gravel and stone garden path. Tall, slender, with voluptuous curves filling out her clothing in the right places, the early morning sunlight caught her hair and turned it to flame. Long, narrow eyes, cat-green and calculating as any feline's, studied him.

"The blood of Christ wouldn't protect from you, now would it?"

"Not even the real McCoy," she confirmed, strolling to the veranda and stepping onto it. "You like to court death?"

"Death comes to us all," he said with a shrug, gesturing gracefully to the chair at the table beside him. "It's not something I spend a lot of time worrying about."

"What do you want?"

"I have information for you. About a mutual acquaintance."

"Crowley?" Abaddon took the chair, her gaze flicking around the surroundings before settling back on him. "He's disappeared."

"He possesses the Sword, as I'm sure you know by now," Forrester told her, his tone light.

"And what do you know of the Sword?" she asked.

Smiling as he looked back at the mountain range, he said, "I gave it to him."

There was a silence from her, drawn out and potent.

"Why?"

"Lucifer was tricked, and returned to the cage," he said, lifting his cup and sipping the rich brew it held, savouring the bite of the alcohol. "Hell was leaderless and you weren't around."

"No, I wasn't, was I?" she said.

"Crowley was an ambitious salesman at the time, and he had big plans. Plans I thought would further my own."

"I see."

Turning to look at her, he smiled again. "Do you?"

"Why are you telling me this?"

"Crowley's served his purpose," Forrester said. "His capture and what was done to him means that he can no longer see clearly the best interests of the Accursed plane."

"Go on."

"I believe you are the rightful heir to the Sword."

Her eyes narrowed a little as she leaned forward. "And your interest in seeing the Sword returned to the rightful heir is?"

"Surely you've noticed how amenable people become when their lives are no longer comfortable or safe, and their entire world is at risk?" he said.

"A new world order?" she asked, leaning back abruptly. "Perhaps a city or country to stay safe from Hell's citizens when we overrun the planet and take everything we want? Is that what you're asking for?"

"That would be the ballpark, yes," he allowed, inclining his head. "Not much point in ruling if one has no subjects, I think you'd agree?"

He saw that the comment hit its mark.

"And what's to stop me from reneging on any deal made with a human, and taking it all?" she asked him, one brow curving up derisively.

"I won't tell Cain how to find you," Forrester said, careful to hide his satisfaction as he saw her mouth tighten.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Hay, Kansas<strong>_

The angel took over as soon as Sam had packed the groceries into the trunk and slid behind the wheel, following the insistent compulsion to the empty street beneath the sheltering concrete overpass.

Getting out of the car, Gadreil looked around, and Metatron strolled out from behind one of the huge concrete pillars, smiling slightly. He followed the angel's gaze upward at the sound of the traffic rumbling over the suspended road above them.

"Frankly, I never got used to them," Metatron said with a moue of distaste. "I lived among them for centuries. I had to isolate myself to keep sane."

Gadreil's gaze dropped back to the smug expression on the archangel's face. "They do seem chaotic."

Metatron inclined his head. "Which makes them fascinating … all that emotion, direct from His spark," he said softly. "And all the wasted energy. Ants without organisation. Creatures without purpose. It's exhausting."

"I know. This vessel …" Gadreil began, shaking his head. "… it's a mess in here."

He thought of the memories he'd looked through, years of pain. Years of fear and doubt and rudimentary frameworks that had collapsed under the collective strain of going against his nature, trying to find meaning in the manipulations of powers greater than he could have dreamed, trying to find redemption in a life that was filled with choices, well-intentioned but ultimately, wrong.

"And the brother – I do not know where to start."

Metatron's eyes narrowed slightly. "Best to leave Dean out of it completely."

There was something in the archangel's tone, some sharper edge and Gadreil focussed his attention more closely on him.

"Why?"

For a moment, he thought that Metatron would ignore the question, or brush it aside. The scribe looked past him, his face still in contemplation.

"He is not what he seems, I think." The angel shook himself a little, as if at a shiver. "There is something around him, something that has always been there, that … protects him in some way."

Opening his mouth to tell the scribe that he'd seen no such sign, Gadreil closed it again as Metatron looked back to him, the contemplative look gone, his face shuttered.

"I can free you, Gadreil. From all of them."

"You intend to be the ruler of this …new … Heaven?"

"I will oversee it, yes," Metatron allowed. "We will not deviate from the plan again."

"Then does that not make you … God?" Gadreil asked him, his mind floundering in the attempt to envisage what the scribe was describing.

"Oh, no," Metatron chucked, his gaze cutting to one side and down. "Let's not bandy semantics. This will be a rebuilding of equals, Gadreil, all of us working together, as we used to."

"As we used to …" Gadreil mused. "Eighty thousand years ago? Before Lucifer stole innocence and gave … them –" He lifted his hand and gestured at the town to one side. "– knowledge?"

He turned away from the archangel, walking restlessly across to the car. "Forty thousand years ago perhaps? When Lucifer Fell and Michael cut off his wings? Or perhaps you refer to two thousand years ago, when Raphael and Uriel began to meddle in the bloodlines to create the keys to release our brother from his eternal torment?"

"I see you've been keeping track," Metatron said, watching him move around. "You and I … and selected others … we could have Paradise again, Gadreil."

Gadreil stopped abruptly beside the Impala, staring at the glossy paint. Perhaps the idea of a time when all were in harmony was a fallacy, a golden age that had never actually occurred. He knew, from the memories held in this vessel, that Sam had tried to find such a thing too. A time when he and his brother and his father had been content with each other, happy to be together. He'd searched to find a key to returning to that state, mindlessly ignoring the fact that no one could go back. There was only forward.

But Sam and Dean had repeatedly put aside their differences, he considered. Put aside the wrenching agonies of the events and emotions that filled their short lives to try and work toward something that would allow them to find peace.

He looked at the scribe and nodded once. If nothing else, he decided, Heaven could be restored, the souls tended, the Spheres held in balance.

And if Hell rose and every one of His Father's creations was transformed? The thought slid in without warning, and the muscle of his vessel's jaw jumped in reaction.

Then there would a place for those innocents who died in the cataclysm, he told himself fiercely. At least that would remain.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

The library was almost silent, the soft tapping of keys as Dean typed in another search, and the faint rustle of paper as Kevin moved his notes aside to write down another piece of information, were the only sounds in the large room.

Like the unvarying light, the near-silence was cumulatively soporific, Dean thought, staring at the screen in front of him. It sapped concentration after a while, dulled everything down to a field of don't-know and can't-think.

Kevin's deep sigh was loud and filled with frustration, and he looked over at the prophet.

"Dean, there may be nothing in here. Crowley said the spell was irreversible."

"Yeah, well, screw Crowley," Dean said, leaning back in the chair. "Why the hell would you think anything he said was true?"

"I don't," Kevin said defensively. "But the section that Metatron hid, even with Crowley's interpretation of the language … I think you were right. He planned on keeping this from everyone, even the prophet, before the tablets were finished."

"Yeah, and the question is why?"

"Where's Sam?" Kevin looked around the room as if he expected the youngest Winchester to be lurking in there.

Dean lifted a brow. "He went out early."

"Where?"

"I don't know," Dean said irritably. "Do I look like his girlfriend?"

They both turned as the printers in the situation room began to chatter, Dean pushing the laptop away as he got up.

"Even if we can't figure out how to reverse that spell, Kevin," he said to the young man as he walked past. "We still need intel on everything else about Heaven, including any other ways in there."

Kevin watched him walk down the steps and looked back at the tablet. He wondered briefly what the man's reaction would be if he was dragged to the Thomas Jefferson Building and told to find references to the works of Marcus Tullius _Cicero_in there – without having access to the catalogues. An image of a polished steel gun popped into his mind and he ducked his head, his mouth tucking in at one corner reluctantly.

* * *

><p>"Sonofabitch," Dean's murmur echoed faintly from the high, hard walls in the situation room and Kevin let out another deep sigh. More good news, undoubtedly.<p>

Above the situation room, the locking rings of the front door clunked and rattled and Dean looked up as Sam walked through, closing it behind him. The carrier bags rustled as he turned for the stairs and started down, face creasing into a smile as he looked down.

"Hey."

"Hey," Dean said, lifting the printout in his hand and waving it at him. "Check this out, another angel attack."

"What? Where?" Sam hit the bottom of the iron stairs and hurried across the floor to him.

"Utah," Dean said, handing it to him and taking the grocery bags at the same time. "College, uh, Bible-study group and their, uh, guest speaker – some top-shelf church lady. Had a little meet-and-greet and the kids were roasted from the inside out, eyes gone … but not the church lady's, interestingly enough."

Sam followed Dean through the library and into the hall, tracking the crackle of the plastic bags unerringly as he read the report in his hands.

"So, she was an angel."

"Looks like," Dean agreed over his shoulder. "And she sang soprano for the Melody Ministry Glee Club."

Sam's head snapped up to look at him as he turned into the kitchen. "The rebel front."

"Rebel, yeah, getting kind of hard to keep those distinctions in line," Dean snorted, lifting the bags onto the counter and starting to pull out the contents. "Definitely two major players, both with their own sweet recruitment schedules."

"They were kids," Sam said with a frown as he lay the paper on the counter and slid onto a stool, reading fast. "Kids thinking they were doing the right thing," he added, his face screwing up.

"Not arguing that it sucks, man," Dean said. "We're not caught up and we're gunna fall further behind if these dicks pick up their pace."

Sam looked up at him. "I've tried everything to get that table to track them."

Shaking his head, Dean said, "I know, that's not what I meant. All these religious groups, even the small ones, they like to talk about what's going on with them, don't they? Newsletters? Websites?"

"Yeah, I guess," Sam said uncertainly.

"Can we – I don't know – search them for some kind of trigger phrasing? Like Boyle's catchphrase, or something along those lines? Something that'll give us an idea of the spread of this thing?"

"Maybe." Sam nodded. "It's all about the angels, after all."

Dean watched him get up and hurry out of the kitchen, his stride long and purposeful again.

It wouldn't be enough, he knew, but maybe it'd be a start to getting there before the actual killing part began.

Zeke'd been more cautious lately. Sam hadn't complained of missing time or missing things in the last few days. It didn't exactly help his own feelings about what he was doing but it took the immediate pressure off. He looked down at the bags in front of him, unpacking them slowly. The idea of the angel, listening in, was still bothering him. He needed a way to stop that, a way around it. Plan A was not to go and counsel the angel's dysfunctional family into behaving better.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Salt Lake City, Utah<strong>_

Cas looked at the angel standing mistrustfully by the door. "It was not of my doing, and I had no reason to suspect him of anything. When Naomi's soldiers came for him, I thought he would be … tortured, brain-washed, as I was."

"Even if you're telling the truth, and Metatron tricked you," Muriel said, looking at him squarely. "The damage has been done. I should turn you in."

"To save yourself?" Cas shook his head. "You won't."

"Don't be so sure," she told him sourly. "I've been running for a long time now. The choice was join or die. Handing you over might convince them that I could be useful outside their organisations."

He looked at her. "You are not yet that battle-hardened, Muriel. And you know it. Neither of us want anything to do with these fanatics."

"And when you prayed," she said, her gaze cutting away. "How did you know that you wouldn't get one of them?"

"My Grace is gone. I'm warded," Cas said with a shrug. "I hoped – I hoped I would seem like another desperate human that the … militants couldn't care less about."

She smiled at that, one side of her mouth turning up deprecatingly. "You think I care?"

"You're here." Cas stood up slowly, gesturing to the door. "You may know the situation. From the little I've been able to glean, Bartholomew is in a blood feud, with another faction."

Muriel snorted. "And not just them. It's madness out there."

"Who is in opposition to Bartholomew?"

"At the moment? Malachi." She walked to the end of the bed and sat down. "But Tyrus has gathered a sizeable group and so has Ishmael. So far, they've been careful to not get involved with any of the others. Malachi is looking for blood."

A memory of the angel flashed into Cas' mind. Leaning over him. Uriel in the background.

"Uriel's second-in-command," he said tonelessly. The first time he'd been … disciplined … in Heaven, he thought.

"Yes." Muriel looked at his expression and grimaced sympathetically. "I see you've experienced his particular talents."

"A long time ago," Cas said, forcing the memories aside. "What does he want?"

"Ironically, the same thing as Bartholomew," she told him. "To raise an army and retake Heaven."

"That's impossible," Cas said, sinking down on the chair behind him. "The gates are sealed. No army is going to be able to break through."

"That's why I've tried to steer clear of them," she agreed acerbically. "Neither will listen to reason."

"Are there many others, like you?"

"Fewer and fewer, every day that passes," she said, looking down at the hands clasped in her lap. "Each of them have been rounding up those who try and stay neutral."

"What of the others?"

"So far, at least here, Bartholomew and Malachi are the main contenders, Castiel," Muriel said slowly. "There are rumours, among those who are still free, that some are waiting to see the outcome of their war." She sighed and looked back up at him. "Even if one or the other gains an army, when they cannot retake the gates, there are those who will step in."

"It doesn't matter who wins – this war or the ones to come –"

"No. They want to crush each other, overthrow Metatron, rule Heaven … and Heaven under any of them would be –"

"Hell."

There was no warning. The door to the room burst open, slamming back against the wall behind it and in seconds, six angels filled the small room, swords gleaming and held to their throats.

He saw the smile curve the leader's mouth, and realised that they had been following Muriel, watching and waiting for her to make contact with the other angels who were hiding. It didn't offer much satisfaction to know that he hadn't brought the danger to her.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Abilene, Kansas<strong>_

Gadreil pulled the black car off the road and into the shadow of the concrete pillar, glancing up at the wide structure above. The scribe had a thing for overpasses, he thought irrelevantly as he got out of the car.

There was no sign of the archangel and he wondered, again, if the decision he'd come to was the right one. He had made a single mistake once before, placing his trust in his brother.

* * *

><p><em>The Garden had been beautiful, an oasis of light and growth and hope. Forbidden to interact with the creatures it contained, he had watched them nonetheless, hiding in the shadows and listening to them, seeing their flesh glow with the divine light that had filled them, luminescent and of such beauty that, sometimes he'd had to turn away, his breath caught in his throat, his construct shaking with the sight of his Father's love manifested on this plane. He'd felt an awe that this was his task, to guard and protect them, to be so close to them.<em>

_And he hadn't once considered that any of his brethren could have possibly felt any other way._

"_I only want to look on them, as I know you do, brother," the Lightbringer had whispered to him. "Just look on those who have been given this gift, who we will be serving."_

"_No, Lucifer," he'd told the angel. "That is forbidden."_

"_But you have, Gadreil, I can see it in your eyes, the love you have for them," Lucifer had said. "I give you my word, I will not let them know I'm near."_

_He'd watched the fiery gold and silver construct of his brother shrink and dull as the archangel had transformed himself into the lowliest of his Father's creatures, the grass snake at his feet looking up at him imploringly._

"_They will not even see me," Lucifer had promised._

_And he had agreed, reluctantly._

_He hadn't known what his brother had said to them. He hadn't known about the tree until it was too late. Lucifer had gone when the woman had picked the apple and bitten into it._

_And he had been torn from his post, cast into the darkness between the stars and left there, alone and bereft of everything he'd ever known and all those he'd loved. For more than forty thousand years._

* * *

><p>He could not bear the thought of making that mistake again.<p>

The crunch of gravel behind him dragged his thoughts back to the present and he turned around, seeing the scribe walking toward him.

"I have given your proposal much thought, Metatron," he said slowly, looking at the harmlessly, convivial face of the angel. "I will join you, as your second-in-command."

The round face creased up in a smile, delight and relief mingling.

"This will be your chance, Gadreil," the archangel promised him. "To remove the stain from your name. Heaven will be restored and you along with it, to blaze in timeless glory as saviour. You will not regret your decision today."

Gadreil looked down at him and inclined his head slightly. "And I thank you for the opportunity."

"We don't have as much time as I would've liked," the scribe continued, the smile fading completely. "The angels have begun to see that the situation is not as simple as they would prefer. There are factions gathering together."

Gadreil nodded. "Bartholomew leads one faction."

"And Malachi another," Metatron told him, staring over the flat land surrounding them. He glanced back at the angel. "What they do here is not important, there is no possible way of reversing the spell used to cast them down. But others move here on this plane as well, and it would be better if we kept ourselves distant from all."

"I am yours to command, Metatron."

"That is what I wanted to hear," the scribe said, smiling. "I will need proof, of your fidelity, Gadreil. Conclusive proof."

"I don't understand," Gadreil said. "You have my word."

"Yes, and under any other circumstances, that would certainly be enough," Metatron said. "But we have enemies, my friend, enemies who pose an imminent and significant threat to our efforts. They must be … neutralised."

"Slain." The word dropped from Gadreil flatly.

"In a word, yes."

"That is not – I am not a butcher, Metatron," Gadreil said slowly.

"You are a soldier, Gadreil," the archangel said reprovingly. "Bound to obedience and to the greater cause. This is the greater cause now."

The angel watched him pulled a small, yellow card from the inside of his coat pocket. "The first name on your To Do list," Metatron told him, passing the card to him.

Gadreil looked down at it, brow creasing up as he read it.

"He is your tool."

"Was." Metatron looked away with a shrug. "Now, he is expendable."

"This will go ill with my vessel."

"Your … vessel … need know nothing about it, if you so choose." Metatron stared up at him. "This is the job, Gadreil. Decide."


	18. Chapter 18 No Fate But What We Make

**Chapter 18 No Fate But What We Make**

* * *

><p><em><strong>Provo, Utah<strong>_

Consciousness returned in flickering bursts, of sound, of smell, of taste and flashes of light between moments of darkness behind his mostly-closed eyelids.

There was a lot of pain. Cas set his teeth together as he registered the wounds and breaks in his vessel, the arcing fire that crackled and fritzed through his nervous system.

"He's awake."

The voice was familiar, he thought vaguely, forcing his eyes to open more widely.

The room was lit by a single bulb, hanging from an age-blackened beam in the centre of the ceiling. Beyond the open door, he heard screams and moans, muffled by distance and closed doors. His arms ached and he looked at the manacles that held his wrists, his eyes following the chains attached to them, up to the dark metal blocks holding them to the ceiling.

"Good." A man walked toward him and he looked at him. Of medium height, thin and narrow-faced, the man should not have been able to incite the fear in him that he did, Cas thought. Lank, black hair fell to either side of a middle part, framing the bony nose and dark eyes. The dark moustache and goatee made the weak chin look stronger. In the eyes, the angel that had taken over the unprepossessing human stared back at him.

"Malachi."

"This is a bonus, Castiel," Malachi said, glancing toward the floor. "We were tracking Muriel, cowardly traitor that she is, and wonder of wonders, she led us straight to you.

Cas looked down. Muriel was sprawled against a column, her hands bound behind her, her clothing torn and her face bloodied and bruised.

"Not … knowingly," she said slowly and distinctly, the words punctuated by deep breaths.

"I stand corrected," Malachi said with a smile. "Not knowingly. Stupidly."

He aimed a careless kick at her as he walked past and around Cas.

"This is pointless, Malachi," Cas said, forcing his gaze from Muriel to the faction leader. "I don't know how Metatron's spell worked. I cannot tell you how to undo it." He saw another man move closer from the corner of his eye. "I was an unwitting accomplice."

"Theo, refresh the great Castiel's memory," Malachi said, turning away.

The first blow came as he was turning his head. He felt the weight behind the fist of the angel's vessel, compressing his flesh between bone and bone, felt the veins and capillaries squeeze and burst, the skin split under the impact, his brain – Jimmy's brain – shudder and slop in the enclosure of his skull.

He had fought hand-to-hand before, but always there had been his Grace, between him and the vessel's receptors, between him and the enemy's power. He had seen his friends fight as well. Now, he understood the punishment they took with every blow, every hard edge, every crumbling, cracking impact. A fleeting second's memory of Dean's face, under his own fist, came back and he grunted as the second blow hit the bridge of his nose, feeling the bone break, the cartilage below give, the skin above his brow split. Blood trickled down his face as the third blow hit the side of his mouth, slamming his head back again, a disturbing grinding sound from somewhere deep in his neck.

"Have we got your attention, Castiel?" Malachi said, holding his hand up. "Theo here's happy to keep working you over. No Grace, no pain control – that can't be fun."

"I – I –" Cas started to say, stopping to spit as his mouth filled with blood, one tooth wobbling. "I told you –"

"You were the patsy," Malachi said, nodding. "Yeah, you told us. The trouble is, I'm standing here in front of the great Castiel," he said, turning to look at the angel. "The seraph who broke free of his orders, free of his superiors, who turned the world on its head and stopped not only Lucifer, but Michael, in their attempt to bring Armageddon to Earth."

Cas looked at him through one rapidly swelling eye. "That wasn't me, that was the –"

"The humans? Come on, Castiel, no one believes that."

Malachi smiled, stepping closer. "And then there were the Leviathans. And who was it that killed Raphael? Oh, I do believe that was … you." He shook his head. "No, I don't believe you were the dupe when Metatron came to you with his plan. I don't believe that at all."

He stepped back, nodding again to Theo and Cas snapped his head to one side as the angel's fist flashed toward him. It hit him in the sternum and he gasped as the blow drove deep, cracking the bones, a blinding pain shocking every organ to stillness inside.

"I've told you everything, Malachi," Cas groaned. "I have no other information."

"You were in Heaven, Castiel," Malachi said coolly, his eyes narrowed. "You were there, when the spell was worked –"

"I was the reason it worked!" Cas shouted suddenly, falling forward against the manacles. "I am Graceless now because it was the final ingredient, but I saw nothing else, I was bound there as I am here!"

"Lies!" Malachi shrilled back at him. "You were there, you know his weakness!"

"No."

"Theo," Malachi said, with a tired exhale.

Theo, tall and wide-shouldered, thick scars bisecting his vessel's face, picked up the long, tapering blade from the small, wheeled table beside him.

"No," Cas said, unable to take his eyes from the gleaming quatrefoil sword. "No."

The tip slid smoothly over his collarbone, digging in as it reached the bared pectoral muscle protecting his chest, carving a zigzagging line down past his ribcage and over the abdominal muscles. The pain was bright, brighter than the sun, Cas thought incoherently, the scream torn involuntarily from his throat as he threw his head back, tensing into rigidity against it.

The blade lifted and pain throbbed along the long line, more blood spilling from the cut and running over his skin, soaking into his clothes. Dragging in a shallow breath, Cas opened his eyes and looked at Malachi.

"You would suffer for your beliefs. Even die for them," the angel murmured, nodding slightly. "I understand. But tell me this, Castiel, is Metatron worth your life? Worth the pain you will suffer?" He glanced down at Muriel thoughtfully. "More to the point, is Metatron worth her life?"

She looked up as Cas' eyes narrowed and he stared at Malachi. "No. She has done no wrong here, Malachi. None. You leave her alone!"

"Well … technically, she has been disobedient to her superiors and shown herself to be a traitor to our cause," Malachi explained prosaically. "So, not exactly an innocent."

He looked at Cas. "And I would be prepared to overlook those crimes, seeing that she means something to you, if you will tell me everything you know about Metatron."

Cas' mouth thinned. "I have told you everything I know about Metatron," he grated.

The dark-haired angel looked at Theo, nodding fractionally.

"No! Don't touch her!"

"I have no intention of touching her, Castiel," Malachi said as Theo stepped and dropped to one knee before her. "Virtue is its own punishment."

The sword blade punched through the ribs and through the vessel's heart and Muriel's eyes and mouth opened, argent light filling them, exploding from them. Cas' eyes slitted as he watched the light pour from her and dissolve. When it had completely gone, Theo stood, pulling the sword from her as he released his hold. Cas closed his eyes as she toppled to one side, the dull thud of her head hitting the ground echoing inside his mind.

Malachi looked at the angel-possessed woman standing by the door. "Get rid of that, would you?"

It was the indifference in his voice that roused Cas, pushed aside the throbbing agony and lifted his head. "Angels destroying other angels … is this what we've become?" he asked the angel incredulously.

Malachi turned around, a mocking smile on his mouth. "I am following your example, Castiel," he said. "How many did you kill when you returned to Heaven, glutted with the power of fifty million souls? Do you know? Do you remember the fields that were red with your wrath? How many did you kill in the Fall? A thousand? Two? Ten? You don't know that either, do you?"

He shook his head. "A _host_ of angels died when they Fell, Castiel … and I must correct myself for 'died' is too tame a word for the agony they endured – their wings shredded from their bodies, Castiel, they were burned alive on the long, long plummet to this plane."

Malachi turned away, his face drawn and pale with the memories, his voice thick and raw, a vicious edge along it. "_Your_ brothers and sisters, _our_ brothers and sisters, our _family_ … Azrael, Sophia, Iophiel, Ezekiel, Danyael … their names were sung through the aether for weeks afterward, but I guess you were too busy then to pay attention."

Cas remained silent, his gaze on the floor, his lips sealed against the nausea that fluxed through him, tearing at his organs, pain and shame and guilt burning through every blood path.

"All right," Malachi said, lifting one shoulder in a shrug. "You will share their fate. I leave you in the hands of an artist, Castiel. He will show you what they felt before they died." Turning to look at Theo, Malachi's voice was flat as he added, "I don't care what's left."

He walked out the open door, flanked by two others. Theo lifted the tip of the sword and looked at Cas, glancing once over his shoulder and taking a step closer.

"Do not ask for mercy, there is none," he said, turning back and closing the door, the steel door clanging against the metal frame.

Cas watched him move slowly back to the instrument table, one thought circling in his mind. Ezekiel had died in the Fall. Died. In. The. Fall. Who then had answered Dean's prayer? Who was healing Sam?

Putting down the sword, Theo picked up a tubular metal gun, a long needle protruding from its tip. "I'll give you one last chance for this to end."

"Give me a quick death," Cas said, tilting his head back and closing his eyes.

"I need you to speak to Metatron," Theo said, his voice dropping low as he stepped closer. "Everyone knows you have influence."

Cas opened his eyes, looking at the angel in front of him and struggling to keep his face expressionless as Theo continued.

"He'll listen to you. Ask him to raise me to Heaven. You can do this, Castiel," the scarred angel said, his tone becoming earnest, almost wheedling. "I'll be a soldier for Metatron, do anything he wants."

Cas looked at him. He'd fallen from his path when he'd lied, almost been killed for telling the truth … he wasn't sure of the lessons he was supposed to be learning here but the angel's belief was real, that he couldn't doubt.

"You – you serve Malachi," he said, frowning at Theo.

Theo ducked his head, taking the question as a rebuke. "I thought he was the answer," he admitted, glancing up. "But he's crazy, the Fall, it did something to all of us, some more than others."

"You – you're just noticing this now?" Cas asked acerbically. "You were more than willing to do what he didn't want to dirty his hands with!"

"I did what I had to," Theo said, shaking his head as he turned away. "You don't know what they've been doing, Castiel. All of them, forcing obedience and loyalty on pain of death – I did what I had to!"

"When you were sure that he would defeat Bartholomew?"

Theo raised his gaze, looking steadily at Cas. "No one – no one will survive this war."

Cas let out his breath. That was likely to be true. And Abaddon would sit and watch and wait for the numbers to be reduced further, and she would raise Hell to take the planet without any opposition at all.

"So, you prefer to sit it out in Heaven?"

"I can talk to him, about restoring your Grace," Theo suggested tentatively.

Cas looked away, uncertain of how to make the most of this unexpected opportunity. Think like Dean, he told himself. What would his friend do in this situation? The answer came immediately.

"Well …" he said slowly. "It's, um, true. Metatron and I do have a working relationship."

"I knew it!" Theo lowered the gun completely and beamed at him. "You are in alliance with him?"

"You're very clever, Theo," Cas said, nodding sagely as he looked around the room. "And he could use a skilled soldier, like yourself."

"I am at his service, Castiel," Theo said immediately. "And yours."

Cas frowned and gave a tiny shake of his head. "I don't know …"

"What? I can prove myself to you," Theo assured him, his expression anxious. "Here."

He pulled the keys to the shackles binding the angel, undoing one as quickly as possible. "I am skilled, Castiel, in more ways than you might think."

The other shackle dropped and Cas lowered his arms, rubbing the wrists gently. "I'll need a moment, Theo," he told the angel. "To make contact."

"Of course."

"And I'll need something from you," Cas added, looking down at the tray beside him.

"Anything!"

Nodding as if he'd expected the answer, Cas' hand flashed to the tray, his fingers closing around the slender knife there, lifting and slashing in the same movement. Theo stared uncomprehendingly at him as the base of his throat began to trickle blood and glow white.

"Wait –"

Castiel drew in his breath sharply and the amorphous white light swirled from the angel in front of him, surrounding and penetrating the cells of Jimmy Novak's body, a delicately shimmering shroud of nacreous power.

He blinked and felt his vessel flush with the angelic connection, a rising harmony singing with the Spheres – to Heaven, closed though it was, to the souls it held and to the being that was eternally joined to those souls. His wounds vanished, sealing and fading from sight. His senses sharpened, vision and sound, smell and taste and feeling, tingling along the nervous system of his vessel that was too primitive to handle the power that sparked and crackled along it. He closed his eyes, reinforcing the pathways in the body, strengthening the limits of the mind.

"Trust –" he told Theo softly. "– is a rare and precious commodity. It is impossible to trust those who change sides to suit themselves."

"Wha –?" Theo looked at him in confusion.

Lifting his hand, Cas laid it gently over the vessel's forehead. The power, generated and controlled through the Grace of God that filled him with the mellifluence of the universe, incinerated what it touched, boiling the liquid that the body held in such abundance, charring and desiccating the cells from the inside out. Theo collapsed at his feet, his vessel's orifices still smoking.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

Dean walked quietly through the halls, pausing occasionally to listen, moving on when he heard nothing.

Zeke could listen in on whatever he chose with Sam and he needed something to prevent that. A cursory search of the order's spells for celestial beings had so far proven unsatisfactory. He was going to have to get Kevin involved, but it had to be when Sam wasn't around. And, he realised with a slightly sinking feeling, it would have be disguised as something else. He couldn't risk Kevin knowing what was going on – couldn't risk his brother to anyone's momentary lapse of attention or carelessness.

He turned down the stairs at the end of the hall, pulling out his phone and touching the icon for the app in one corner. It was a small specialty app Charlie had given him before she'd taken off on the Yellow Brick Road, using his own phone's signal to ping another number. Didn't have much range, but enough to cover the bunker and if Sam hadn't turned his phone off completely, it would let him know where he was.

He stopped at the kitchen doorway, looking down at the screen. There was no returning signal at all. Glancing up, he saw Kevin pick up a sandwich and a plate carrying another, balanced on a tall glass of milk.

"Hey, you seen Sam?"

Kevin shook his head, chewing, then slowed. "He went out."

"Where?"

"Do I look like his girlfriend?" Kevin asked caustically, swallowing his mouthful. "I don't know. You notice he's been doing a lot of that lately?"

Dean looked at him for a long moment. "Yeah."

The phone shrilled in his hand and he looked down, barely aware of Kevin turning away and heading back to the library.

"Yeah?"

"Dean," Cas' voice grated in his ear. "I don't have a lot of time, so listen. The leader of the faction opposing Bartholomew is Malachi."

Dean grimaced slightly at the uselessness of that information, biting back his first response. "How do you know that?"

"I – uh – I wasn't as careful as I could've been," Cas said. "He found me, but I got away."

"How?"

"I – I did what I had to," Cas admitted after a second's hesitation.

"What are you – Cas, where are you?" Dean asked, shunting aside the other question he'd wanted to ask for a moment. The angel's voice had held an edge he'd heard before, once or twice. It would have to wait.

"It's better if I stay away," Cas said. "They're going to be stepping up the search for me now. But I'll be alright – I got my Grace back. Well," he added, a little deprecatingly. "Not mine, per se, but it'll do."

"Wait, you – you're back? You got your mojo?"

Another hesitation. "I'm not sure. But I am an angel."

Dean closed his eyes. "And you're okay with that?"

"If we're going to war, I need to be ready," Cas said, his voice firming.

"Cas –"

"Dean, listen to me – there's more," the angel cut him off.

"What?"

"You told me that Sam was being healed by Ezekiel," Cas said, worry threading through the gravelly voice now.

Dean felt a prickle at the back of his neck. "Yeah, why?"

"Ezekiel is dead."

"What?" The prickle flared, burning into him at the angel's words.

"I just found out that he died, Dean, when the angels Fell."

"Goddammit, Cas."

"I'm sorry –"

"It's alright," Dean said, cutting him off. "You didn't know. Listen, is there any way you know of to talk to an angel's vessel without the angel knowing about it?"

He chewed the corner of his lip as Cas' end remained silent.

"The angel is inside of Sam?" Cas asked eventually and the worry he'd felt escalated at his tone.

"Is there?"

"No, nothing I have heard of," Cas admitted heavily. "When we reside in a vessel, we have complete control over the vessel's mind and body."

"Alright," Dean snapped the word out. "Look, you – uh, you keep your head down. Lemme know if you find out anything else. Anything more useful than a name," he added, unable to keep the sourness from his voice.

"Dean, I –" Cas started to say, and Dean cut the call, staring sightlessly at the kitchen wall, struggling to find a way out of the fucking unbelievable mess he'd put his brother in.

"Goddammit," he muttered, swinging around and heading for the stairs again. "Just one fucking break, that's all I'm looking for here."

* * *

><p>He shut the lid of the laptop down an hour later, wiping his hand over his face. The order's files were no help. Lurching upright, unmindful of the crash of the chair as it tipped over behind him, he headed for the door of his room.<p>

The tablet had to have the information on controlling angels, even if Kevin hadn't run across it yet, he thought desperately, breaking into a run as he hit the hall, and rocketing down the stairs. There had to be a way to get a message to his brother without the angel in him finding out about it. Had to be.

At the library table, Kevin was sleeping over a pile of notes, his empty plate and glass sitting beside him. Dean strode up to the table and slammed his hand onto the top beside the young man, making the tablet, plate and glass jump.

"Listen, I need a spell, and I need it now," he said as Kevin lifted his head tiredly.

"Everyone always needs a spell and they always need it now," the prophet mumbled at him, one eye opening wide enough to look at him.

"Get it together, Kevin," Dean warned, his voice soft suddenly. The change in tone set off alarms in Kevin's mind and he forced himself to straighten up, looking at the man's drawn expression.

"What happened?"

"Listen to me," Dean said, leaning on the table. "An angel can't be expelled by another human, okay? Only by the host, right?"

"I guess," Kevin said, knuckling his eyes.

"What I need is a way to power down an angel who's already possessing someone, so it's not in charge, even if it's just for a few minutes."

"What?"

Dean looked down at the table, the muscle in the point of his jaw jumping. "For instance – uh, hypothetically, if I wanted to speak to the vessel but not have the squatter listen in?"

"Why?"

"Why?" Dean repeated, his tone outraged disbelief as he searched for a reason. "Kevin, we've got tons of possessed humans out there – hey! You with me? And when the angels get killed off, the humans are taking it in the teeth. So what if I wanted to clue the human in so that he – or she – could spit the angel out? That would be a good thing, right?"

"Uh, yeah. Right."

"Right," Dean said, exhaling the word gustily. "Okay, so hit the tablet, there's gotta be a way to do this on there, somewhere." He looked down as Kevin blinked a couple of times. "C'mon, let's go!"

"Now?"

_Don't hit him_, Dean told himself firmly. _Only game in town_. "Yesterday, Cinderella!" he snapped instead, wheeling around for the situation room. "Nothing else is more important than this right now."

Nothing else was more important, he thought bitterly, than getting his brother untangled from the lying angel that was maybe – or maybe not – healing him.

_And if he hasn't?_ The small voice in his mind piped up with its usual timing, asking the question he couldn't face.

_He'll be alright_, he told himself. He hasn't been as tired, lately. Had gained a little weight, he thought, searching his memories for other signs that on that point, at least, the unknown angel hadn't been lying.

_Because if this mook has just been sitting in there, hiding out or looking for a chance to get to Cas – _

Dean stopped dead beside the situation table. Whatever the fuck's name, he hadn't killed Cas when he'd had the chance, he thought, clutching at the faint hope. Had brought him back from the dead. That had to mean something, right? Had to mean that he wasn't one of the really bad guys?

_Or he was waiting for a better opportunity_, the voice continued, unfazed at being ignored. _Perhaps an opportunity to let his brothers into the order?_

_Could've done that months ago_, Dean argued back.

That did shut the voice up and he turned around, looking at the table. At least it explained why Sam hadn't been able to find a way to take the frequencies they had and track the angels, he thought. Maybe the strange angel in him hadn't wanted that kind of information. Maybe it hadn't wanted them to have that kind of information.

He took the narrow hall out of the room and walked to the elevator, hitting the buttons without thinking about it. The cage rattled and bumped its way down to the sub-basement and he pressed the additional combination, staring at the iron gate without seeing it.

Sam had been doing a lot of going out, he thought. Not for this long, usually, but he'd been out for an hour, maybe two, three times since they'd returned from Wyoming. Meeting up with someone? It was a possibility, he thought uncomfortably.

The elevator stopped with its usual bounce on the garage level and he opened the door, striding out and climbing the shallow flight of steps to the garage. The Impala was gone.

He hadn't checked the speedometer after Sam had gone out before. But he knew her figures and he knew her mileage. It might give him a slight heads-up on where Sam had been. There weren't all that many destinations in northern Kansas. He wasn't sure that was going to help at all.

In his pocket, his phone hummed, the ring-tone muffled.

"Yeah?"

"Dean, I think I found something," Kevin said.

Looking at his watch, he realised that Sam had been gone, as near as he could tell, for three hours.

"I'll be there in a minute," he told Kevin, ending the call and tucking the phone back in his pocket.

Would his brother go out one day and just not come back? The thought jolted through him and he lengthened his stride, taking the flight of steps back down to the elevator in a single jump, feeling his palm slide as he gripped the iron gate.

* * *

><p>"What is it?" Dean looked at the drawing Kevin had made, frowning at the interconnected circles.<p>

"It's – I think it's a field," Kevin said, pushing the book across the table. "The tablet mentioned restraint, and it had the beginning of the spell, but it was just a reference and I couldn't find the full details, there's just too much there – I found the rest in this."

The book was old; a slim volume bound in tattered leather, heavy parchment pages wrinkled and torn along the edges, the feel of them brittle under his fingertips. Dean looked at the archaic printing, frowning as he realised it wasn't written in English.

"What's this?"

"German," Kevin said absently, reading over his notes. "A form of it, anyway."

"You know German?"

"Did three years for extra credit," the prophet said. "I haven't checked the apothecary for all of the ingredients we need," he added, brows drawn together as he read over the list.

"Not in German, are they?" Dean asked, one brow lifted.

"No."

Dean sighed softly. Kid still had no sense of humour. "Give it to me, I'll check."

Taking the list, he turned from the library and headed for the stairs, vaguely wondering how many times he'd gone up and down that day. Too many, his legs told him as he started down.

* * *

><p>The cool, high-ceilinged room, walled with high shelving and glass-fronted cupboards, smelled pungently of the herbs and powders stored there, an underlying scent of old books and some of the more esoteric ingredients used in the poisons, cures and potions adding a bitter aftertaste. Dean's nose wrinkled slightly and he left the door open, glancing down at the list in his hand.<p>

It was Sam's domain, really, this room and the store-room beside it. His brother had begun going through the volumes that packed the shelves and filing cabinets, at first seeking some reference to what had been done to him. The order's collected lore on demonology was vast and Dean knew that even here, his brother had barely scratched the surface of the books and files that were packed and jammed in along the shelves. Sam had gotten side-tracked numerous times, finding the recipes for the healing paste they now took with them everywhere, its analgesic and restorative qualities obviating half the contents of their standard med kit. He'd found the Campbell cure for vampirism here as well, and the cure for djinn poisoning, not just one variety but several. On the long, narrow preparation table, a half dozen books laid open at various pages, and he walked over to them, glancing at the dense, scientific text that seemed to be related to the transmission of lycanthropy.

_Focus_, he told himself, turning away. It was easy enough to see why Sam could spend hours and days in here, despite the overwhelming odours.

Dragon's blood was the powdered form of rubies, he knew, taking a packet from the long, narrow drawer in the cabinet, and looking down at the list again. Most of what the spell required was here, ingredients that both he and Sam had recognised as forming a kind of base framework for any ritual that controlled the beings – or frequencies – of the other adjacent planes. Precious metals. Pure elements. Herbs, dried or fresh, that somehow confounded or enhanced those elementals' attributes.

Blood.

Human, he guessed, looking at the quantity. A pint. He turned for the store-room, going through the narrow, boxed-in doorway and into a much larger room, shadowy with the numbers of crates and barrels and boxes stacked into every free foot of space. At the other end, a large, commercial, glass-fronted refrigerator held blood in bags and bottles and jars, human, canine, feline, equine, bovine and a dozen other varieties, a chart taped to the door advising of the age and type of each container on the tempered glass shelves. He looked at the bags hanging there and grabbed one, adding it to the rest of the ingredients held precariously in the crook of one arm.

* * *

><p>"Here," he said to the prophet, ten minutes later. Both of them stood in the last of the downstairs store-rooms, located along the hall from the situation room to the elevator. Most were empty, used as temporary storage now. The room was perhaps fifteen feet long by twelve foot wide, a few wooden crates stacked against one wall, and a lot of clear wall and floor space.<p>

Taking the bowl from Kevin, he paced out the distances that the ritual required and drew each of the sigils carefully from Kevin's reproductions, the thick paste clagging the end of the slim paintbrush.

"So, how's this work again?" he asked, moving slowly around the room.

"The sigils, in conjunction with each other, are supposed to hobble the angel within the field created. It's hard to say what properties the field generated has, possibly electro-magnetic, possibly something else. As soon as your blood touches the ignition sigil, it'll kick in," Kevin said, watching him paint another one of the wall. As the outline was finished, the paste was drying almost to invisibility. "I'm pretty sure that it will hold the angel for at least five minutes."

Stopping mid-stroke, Dean looked over his shoulder at the young man. "You're … pretty sure?"

"Say ninety-eight percent," Kevin nodded, oblivious to the expression on the man's face. "After five minutes, the effects are going to wear off, not all at once, but still it takes a lotta juice to hold an angel down."

"Yeah," Dean mumbled, finishing the design and moving to the next. Ninety-eight percent, he thought. He'd gone in on much worse stats.

"Dean, what's going on?"

Finishing the sigil he was working on, Dean chewed his lip, not sure how to respond.

"I told you."

"You told me – theoretically," Kevin corrected tersely. "We standing here painting these sigils on the walls now. What the hell?"

"You're gonna have to trust me," the hunter said, dipping the brush back into the bowl and scraping out the last of the paste. "Okay? Trust that I've told you everything I can for now."

He finished the last symbol, turning around as the seven sigils glowed together for a second, then vanished completely. Looking at Kevin, he raised a brow questioningly.

"Can you do that?"

"I always trust you," Kevin said, his voice resigned.

Stepping back from the wall, Dean nodded and passed him the brush and bowl.

"And I always get screwed," Kevin added, taking them.

"Oh, c'mon," Dean scoffed. "Always? Not always."

"This is for Sam, isn't it?" Kevin said, moving carefully across the floor, veering around the now-invisible circle that joined each of the also-invisible sigils on the wall. "He's been acting weird."

Following the prophet's wobbling path out of the room, Dean winced inwardly. "Kevin, the less you know, right now, the better off you'll be."

"Why does that sound like an excuse, Dean?" Kevin stopped outside the door to the room. "What happened to you having my back?"

"I've got your back, man," he said exasperatedly. "And I'm not bullshitting you about this, you've got my word."

"And you'll tell me everything … whenever this bit's over?"

Dean's gaze cut away as he said, "Yeah, sure, of course."

He tried not to think about keeping that promise as he followed Kevin down the hall and back to the library.

* * *

><p>Sam drove the black car back into the garage, coming to a stop with a slight chirp of the tyres on the smooth concrete floor. He felt vaguely disconnected, as if he were still asleep, or slightly stoned, he thought as he got out of the car, reaching back in to get the bag on the seat.<p>

He'd woken in a lay-by by the side of the road on the other side of town, dappled sunlight spilling in the car's windows and playing across his face, a very distant memory of feeling tired and pulling over tantalising incomplete in his mind.

Dragging the bag out, he glanced at the dash, forehead creasing as he noticed the fuel gauge. He'd thought about filling up when he'd taken her out. Had he done that?

_Could be you did and forgot about it having your afternoon nap_, he could almost hear his brother's semi-reasonable tone in his mind.

The disorientation had been getting better. Linear progression and recognition had been pretty stable, the last few days. The clunk of the car's door slamming shut echoed against the hard surfaces of the garage and he turned away, walking slowly down the steps to the elevator. He'd been able to reconstruct almost everything … until today.

Nothing had changed, really, he admitted to himself as the elevator clanked its way upstairs. He hadn't been able to pinpoint the differences, some subtle, some not so, in himself, although the effects had been clear. Hadn't been able to think of a way to make it easier for Dean, to talk to his brother about what might be happening to him. He couldn't even kid himself that he'd tried all that hard, after the Vesta thing. He'd thrown it out, and Dean had run his usual line about the trials and he'd seen the reluctance in his brother's face, to talk about things, things about him and things about his brother. To deal with them. And again, he'd caved.

He couldn't bring himself to break down his brother's walls. And he recognised slowly, he didn't want to have that one voice silenced. The voice that said, it's okay, it's not you. Because if it _was_ him … where the hell did that leave him?

The situation room and library were both empty, the line of computer screens dark and the printers silent. For a moment, he wondered if he was alone in the building, as his boot steps slurred and echoed across the floor. He slowed a little as he climbed the steps to the library. _What if they found out? Found out what's wrong and left you to it?_ Insidiously poisonous, the thought snuck in and he stopped by the table, looking down at the tablets, lying among the sheafs of notes that Kevin generated every day, the empty plate and glass beside them, the half-drunk bottle of beer on the opposite side. For a moment, all he could hear was the pounding of his heart, against the base of his throat and against his ears.

_Dean wouldn't._

He pushed the thoughts aside impatiently and walked down to the hall to the kitchen, the carrier bag holding the beer and groceries bumping rhythmically against his legs.

For the last two days, he'd felt … something, memory, he thought, a teasing, just-out-of-reach familiarity to the things he couldn't nail down. Missing time. Missed moments where he'd moved or spoken or done … something. Waking up tired and sore. His brother's explanations all seeming too thin, too pat for the situations he couldn't remember.

There'd been a time like that before, hadn't there?

The kitchen was empty as well, and Sam forced himself to walk to the fridge, setting the bag on the counter and unpacking it slowly and carefully.

"Hey."

He ignored the flush of relief that spread through him at the familiar deep voice, the sound of boots on the steps.

"Where you been?" Dean asked, coming into the kitchen.

"Hey. Beer run," Sam answered, unpacking the bottles from the packs into the shelf.

"Long beer run," his brother remarked. Sam nodded, stacking the last of the beers on the shelf and closing the door.

He turned around. "Didn't get much sleep last night," he said, leaning back against the counter. "Crashed out for a couple of hours in the car on the way back."

Dean's brows lifted slightly as his gaze cut away to the bag still on the counter. "Can we talk?"

"Yeah, sure."

"C'mon."

He watched Dean turned away, heading back out of the kitchen and followed him. He could see the tension in the rigidity of his brother's shoulders, hunched slightly under his shirt. Could feel the thrum of nervous energy Dean was emanating as he walked fast down the hall and through the library. Whatever it was he wanted to talk about, Sam thought uneasily, it was something his brother was forcing himself into, something he didn't _want_ to do.

The store-room door was open and Dean pushed it wider, gesturing inside. Sam walked past him, looking around the room, half-turning as he heard the door close.

"This sounds serious," he said, and he watched mystified as his brother slapped his hand against the door panel, seeing but not registering the bright red of Dean's blood over the wood.

"What's going on?" he asked, looking from his brother's hand to his face. "What're you doing?"

"I got to tell you some stuff fast," Dean said, taking several steps closer, his face pinched and drawn. "It's gonna piss you off."

"Okay." Sam looked at him warily.

"Those trials really messed you up, Sammy," Dean continued.

Sam rolled his eyes slightly, wondering why his brother was going down this road again. "Yes, I know that, Dea –"

"No. You don't," Dean cut in, his voice hardening. "I mean messed you up like almost dead. No more birthdays. Dust to dust."

Sam stared at him, his forehead beginning to wrinkle up as he opened his mouth. Dean kept talking.

"Well, that messed me up, so I made a move, okay?" he continued, his mouth thinning. "A tough move about you without talking it over, because you were in a coma."

"Wha– wait, when?"

"You were in the hospital, and they said you were going to die," Dean rattled at him and he couldn't take that in, because he hadn't been in a hospital. He could see the naked fear in his brother's face. He didn't know what Dean was afraid of, but there'd only ever been the one thing that could shake his brother like this. Just the one thing.

"What did you do?"

He saw Dean's throat work, saw him swallow hard. "I let an angel in."

"In what?"

"In you," Dean said, voice thick now. "He said he could heal you and he is."

Sam blanked for a second, hearing the words but having no way to fit them into anything he already knew. The tense got him.

"He's still in me?" he asked disbelievingly, seeing the answer in Dean's eyes, not wanting to acknowledge it. "Wait – wait a minute, no, that impossible, Dean, it could never happen – I never invited an angel in."

Dean face screwed up for a second and Sam's breath caught in his throat as he saw the guilt in his brother's expression. "I tricked you into saying yes. It – it seemed like the only way."

That fleeting, teasing memory returned to him then and he saw it all again, the blood on his clothes, the house and the video tape and the bar in Duluth.

_Possession_.

And everything else fell into place at the same time, taking less time than a heart-beat, filling him with so much pain he couldn't believe he was still standing there. But it was all the same, wasn't it? The same problem, over and over. Dean had never believed in him.

"So … again, you thought I couldn't handle something and you took over!" he snapped at his brother, his hands curling into fists as rage rose.

"No! I did what I had to do, Sam," Dean insisted. "You never would've agreed to it and you would've died!"

"Well, maybe I would've liked that choice, at least!" Sam stared at him in frustration, his brother's last words sinking in. "Wait, you knew I wouldn't want this – you knew it and you went ahead anyway!"

"We can do this – later," Dean ground out. "You can kick my ass all you want, but there's something else."

"What? What the hell else?"

He watched his brother's expression screw up again, unconsciously bracing himself.

"The angel lied to me, okay?" Dean said, forcing the words out, his reluctance obvious and unnerving. "He's not who he said he was. Said his name was Ezekiel and I checked – checked with Cas, he was cool, cool guy, but it's not Ezekiel."

Not only an angel, but now a completely unknown one, Sam thought, trying to take that in. In a world where angels were fighting each other and killing people. Inside me. "Then who is he?"

"I don't know!" Dean said, his voice rising a little in frustration. "Apparently, Ezekiel is dead. Whoever this mook is, he can end you in a heartbeat if he wants to so you gotta dump him."

Sam felt his hearing fade, his vision closing in slightly.

"Are you hearing what I'm saying?" Dean took a step closer. "I think you're well enough now, but you got to expel him."

Anger was fluxing through him, hot and rolling in waves, anger riddled through with that old feeling, the one he thought he'd never feel again, that lack of trust, his brother, his father, no one had –

"Sam?" Dean said, looking at his brother's face as Sam started toward him, his face hard and stony and set.

"Sam –"

Dean followed as Sam strode past him, heading for the door. "Hey!"

The turn and the cross came out of nowhere, and Dean hit the ground unconscious.

The angel stared down at him for a moment, then turned for the door, striding out into the narrow hall.

* * *

><p>A year on the run from demons, captured and tortured, who knew how many hours and days and weeks immersed and drowned in the writings of a being that had no parameters and Kevin's internal alarm system was pretty much honed to peculiarities.<p>

He looked up as Sam walked into the library, straightening slowly from the table as he took in the uncharacteristic expression on the man's face and realised instantly that whatever Dean hadn't wanted to talk about it, it was here. Now.

"Hey, Sam," he said, forcing his voice to remain light and casual as the youngest Winchester walked toward him. Turning away a little, he continued, "You noticed anything a bit off about Dean lately?"

Sam stopped at the end of the table as the prophet eased himself around the other end. "Between you and me, I'm a little bit worried about him."

"Don't worry about Dean," Sam said stiffly. "Dean will be fine."

It was the intonation, Kevin thought. Or the timbre of Sam's voice. He wasn't sure which but it was wrong. An angel. Here.

"I guess the spell didn't hold out quite long enough, huh?"

Sam's eyes narrowed slightly. "No."

In that moment, Kevin saw the angel's intent. He felt his fear vanish without a trace, a transient acknowledgement that Dean'd been right all along, he was never going to get out, be free of being a prophet, never live a normal life again, and he drew in a deep breath, hoping that Crowley had lied, again, and that wherever he was going, his mother would be there as well.

"So, the bad guys have been spying on us all along?" he asked.

The angel frowned. "I am not – a bad guy," Gadriel said coldly. "I have protected Sam, healed him."

"Right." Kevin gave him a derisive smile. "And now you're taking over."

"I have no other choice."

"Everyone has a choice!" the prophet snapped as the angel walked toward him. "Everyone has a choice about what they do and why they do it!"

He started to back around the table, his eyes flicking from side to side as he thought of what he could use to hold the damned angel off him, then his legs froze in place and he couldn't move. The in-rush of fear came back, thick and foetid and cold.

"Sometimes," Gadriel said quietly as he reached the boy. "The only choice is not what we want, but what we must do."

"Tell yourself that, if it makes you feel better," Kevin grated at him. "But don't kid yourself that there wasn't another way."

"I am sorry."

The angel lifted his hand and laid it over Kevin's head and fire burned through him, the prophet's scream pouring out and cut off abruptly.

* * *

><p>Dean snapped upright, and fell back, his neck stiff and his jaw on fire. Fractured, he wondered, forcing himself into a sitting position again, more slowly this time.<p>

_Sam._

Not _Sam_.

He rolled cautiously to his feet, ears straining to hear anything. He'd been out maybe five minutes, he thought, glancing at his watch as he took an experimental step toward the door, moving with less caution as the fallout seemed to be confined to one side of his head.

The spell hadn't lasted five minutes. The thought, utterly irrelevant now, drifted in and out of his mind as he increased his speed along the hall. He hurried into the situation room and stopped.

"NO!"

In the library, Sam stood before Kevin, his hand over the young man's head, his face illuminated by a brilliant white light that was incinerating the prophet's body. Dean could smell the charring flesh.

"No, no, no – Kevin!?"

He should've been expecting it. It wasn't as if it was the first time he'd been slammed into next week by an invisible power, his bones creaking and groaning as he was crushed against some immovable object like a bug hitting a windshield, after all. The sight of the young man being flambéed from the inside out had short-circuited most of his thinking. Tearing his gaze from the body on the floor to his brother, he called out in the vague hope that some part of his brother was still there.

"S-Sam?!"

The angel turned to look at him, his face expressionless. "There is no more Sam."

_Not true, not true, not true_. The thought pounded insistently through his mind as Sam let his hand drop but the pressure remained. Dean felt his heart flutter in his chest, his ribs pressing against it, his lungs being compressed and flattened by that unyielding force.

"Who are – y-you –"

Not-_Sam_ turned away. "My name is not of importance." He walked back to the table, picking up Kevin's backpack and looking down at the piles of notes. "The angels will gather for war. I will not be here when they meet."

He couldn't get a clean breath, the air was being squeezed out and there was nothing he could do to get any more in. Pain shot down his left arm and spread out in tendrils of arrhythmic fire across the left side of his chest.

"Humanity will not survive the coming inferno," the angel said, picking up the angel tablet and slipping it into the backpack, then reaching over the table to retrieve the demon tablet. "Those who can make it through a war between angels will still have to face the demon uprising."

He zipped up the bag, slipping one strap over his shoulder and looking down at Kevin's body. "I am sorry for Kevin, but ultimately, it is for the best."

Dean forced his eyes to remain open, feeling his sweat sting in them as it ran down his face. He was going to die here, crushed against the column.

The angel turned around and looked at him. "You did what you had to do. I have done what I had to do. We are all subject to the things we choose, for good or for bad. Even the most almighty."

A yellow card fluttered down from his hand, landing on Kevin's chest and the angel walked past Dean and down the library steps.

_Get a breath_, Dean told himself furiously. _Just one_.

He heard the steps of his brother's boots as he crossed the situation room, heard them clang on the iron steps that led to the door. The locking rings ground open, thudding as they slid back into their housing, then the door boomed shut.

The pressure against him vanished and he fell forward onto his hands and knees, his vision spotted and sparkling, head hanging as he sucked in lungfuls of fresh air, his chest sore but his heart gradually remembering its normal beat.

_Kevin._

Dean looked up. The young man's face was turned toward him, the eye sockets black and red and accusing, he thought hopelessly.

_If Crowley knew where you were, he'd do a helluva lot more than mess with your head. _

_Yeah, well, just lay low. Who knows? You'll be a mathlete again before you know it._

_According to your own words – _yesterday morning_ – this is not what I _do_, it's what I _did_. You told me I was out, Dean. _

_In here, you can trust us. Me and Sam … we got your back._

_Lies_. All of it. Nothing but lies to try and make Kevin feel better about having no choice in what he had to do – or to make himself feel better. He wasn't sure about that.

The kid'd been scared, terrified, and … they'd … done what they'd had to do.

Half-sprawled on the floor between the column and Kevin's body, Dean tipped his head back and let it in …

All of it.

There hadn't been a point that he could've stopped and said, _enough, I'm taking a different way_. Maybe if he'd had the time to think about what had been happening, but not the way it'd all happened. He hadn't known what was going on with the members of that tent church, hadn't known when he'd stood on the creaking stage next to the blind minister that his life would be restored at the cost of another's …

… he couldn't have gone with Tessa, although he knew now he should've. Couldn't walk away from his family and leave them to it, no matter how much he'd wanted to. When he'd finally accepted that he couldn't do anything else, it'd been too late …

… he'd tried, had tried so hard to let Sammy go in Cold Oak. Tried his best to find a way to accept it, to make it feel less like he'd failed his entire family, killed them all. It hadn't took because something wouldn't let go, would never let go. And he hadn't really looked at the cost until the claws had clicked across the parquetry floor and had unzipped his guts over the dining table …

… he could've stayed on the rack, he thought, unaware that he was shaking, his face wet and his chest aching again, his body as tense as a wire tensioned too close to breaking. If he'd known … but he hadn't. Not until after. Not until a long time after. And those memories had poisoned him completely, stained him all the way through, coating and penetrating until there wasn't one part he could look at and feel like he was looking at anything of worth …

… when he'd let Sam take the devil and go into the ground, every part of him had been broken. He'd patched it all together, as much as he could, tried to smile at the woman who'd taken him in, tried to fit in with the people he'd worked with, who'd surrounded the small home in Cicero. Inside, he'd been … empty, he admitted to himself now, that keening pain razoring back through him. Bobby hadn't understood. Sam hadn't understood. They'd thought they'd done the right thing, leaving him alone, leaving him there. They'd thought he'd been happy. The irony of that flushed him through with a blast of shameful heat. He didn't know how he could've looked happy, even to someone on the outside …

… going to Death, trying to deal with the entity to get Sam's soul back. There'd been no choice in that either. Leave his brother as an automaton to live out his life with none of what had made Sam, Sam? It'd been impossible. And it'd doubled back on him when his brother had looked at him in the psych ward, his body exhausted and his eyes filled with despair …

… _If he completes the third trial, he is going to die_ …

Naomi's voice. Sam staggering in the church. The glow of the power that had infiltrated him. The agony in his brother's eyes, in his face, in his voice as he'd talked about redemption, about not being a disappointment, about wanting to finish what he'd started. No. No. No, he couldn't let him go. What if Sam had wanted that? What if he'd wanted to end it all?

"_He's on life-support now, and the EEG is showing some brain activity but if his internal conditions deteriorate –"_

_"He'll be dead."_

… no other good choices. Just bad ones. And he'd made the choice … again. For Sam …

_If I go with you, can you promise that this time it will be final. That if I'm dead, I stay dead. Nobody can reverse it, nobody can deal it away, and nobody can get hurt because of me._

… at the time, he'd been … shocked, he guessed. At the words. At the expression on Sam's face. At the clear intent behind it all. It'd been later that he'd wanted to rip those words and that expression out of his memories. He'd known that Sam was ready to go. Nothing could've been clearer. But it wasn't something he could live with …

Wiping a hand impatiently over his face, he looked down at Kevin, who done nothing wrong, just gotten caught in the cross-fire, like so many of his friends.

"I'm sorry," he breathed, his voice too loud in the absolute silence of the room, even in a whisper.

He had to get up. Burn Kevin. Find Sam. Put together the pieces of what the hell was happening in the world with two or more factions of angels squaring up to each other and a demon waiting in the shadows to see how little resistance there would be when the war was over.

He had to … get up.

* * *

><p>Surrounded by a golden light, he thought hazily, squinting as he peered up at the lamp's bulb.<p>

On the long table of the library, several bottles had been opened, one lay empty on its side. Dean picked up his glass and looked at the contents, distantly aware that he was close now, close to the line between thinking and not-thinking, close to the point where he wouldn't feel anything at all.

It'd taken more than one bottle to throttle back the ache in his chest, muffle the screams in his head and give him some moments of quiet. He shifted his gaze to the second bottle on the small table beside him. Almost empty, he decided, eyes widening and narrowing as he tried to bring the level into focus. And almost numb.

The hangover would be the queen of bitches tomorrow, he knew, but that thought slid away unmissed after a moment. Maybe he'd just bypass the whole morning after thing by not stopping. He'd been careful to stay out of a hospital for a while now, not wanting to know what shape his liver was in. It was entirely possible to drink oneself to death, even in a single sitting.

_And that'll solve everything_, the tart voice in his head piped up caustically.

He didn't have an answer for it, and he shoved it aside, tipping the glass up and swallowing the mellow pool of fire as it filled his mouth. He was almost there and he wasn't going to stop now.

Pain had never cauterised his feelings. Never managed to numb him to the point where nothing had mattered, where he could do the job without knowing the cost in lives lost and friends gone. He didn't know why that was. Soldiers came back from war, battered and numb. Cops retired early, their minds broken and their emotions gone. He thought of Gordon, again, turning into a monster all the while justifying everything he'd done … and everything he'd wanted to do.

Perhaps that was it. He couldn't lie to his family. And he wasn't much better at lying to himself.

_Don't listen to what people tell you_, Dean, his father's voice said distantly. _Watch what they do. That's the only way you'll ever see the truth_.

He shifted uncomfortably in the chair, reluctant to wonder what people would think if they'd seen what he'd done. A failure. Too weak to save his family … worse than that. Too weak to do what was right, when it'd needed to be done. If he'd gone with Tessa, his father could've saved Sam. If he'd sucked it up, he wouldn't have broken the seal and Sam would never have had to face Lilith. If he'd been stronger. Braver. If he'd been the man his father had been …

Lunging forward, he knocked the bottle from the table, the sharp, sour scent of whiskey spilling out over the floor as the contents gurgled through the neck.

_Should've stayed in Purgatory_, he thought, dropping to his knees and grabbing the bottle before it emptied itself. _Should've gone with Jo_.

_And left Sam to bury you a second time?_

He didn't know who that voice belonged to. He couldn't get away from it, no matter how much he drank, or how far he drove. There was a mouthful in the bottom of the bottle and he lifted it, swallowing convulsively and closing his eyes, leaning back against the chair.

_It'll never be over_. That was true enough.

_You wanna kill yourself, go do the job properly_, another voice growled in his thoughts. Bobby's voice, gruff and fed up and itching for a fight. _Get in the car. Hundred miles an hour and say hi and bye to the first tree you meet. Stop your goddamned whining about how hard it all is and DO _SOMETHING_!_

Dean flinched back a little, dropping the bottle and hearing it roll away and bump to a stop against the chair leg.

_Don't you dare think that there is anything – past or present – that I would put in front of you! That meant more to me than you! It has never been like that – ever!_

Had that changed, he wondered? Was he going to sit here, drinking and feeling sorry for himself because he'd made a decision that had endangered his brother – as if he hadn't done that before – instead of getting off the floor and getting in the car and going to find him?

_Save your brother._

He rolled onto his knees, grabbing at the side of the chair to lever himself to his feet, unaware that he was mumbling aloud.

"Sold my soul for you, Sammy, died for you. Not giving up now. No way."

Staggering to one side as the room tilted violently, he stopped, staring at a book on a far away shelf until his balance came back and the room righted itself.

"Bin' to Heaven, bin' to Hell," he muttered, struggling with the concentration required to put one foot in front of the other without tripping himself up. "Bin' fucking everywhere, man, and I'm gonna find you now."

_Shower_. And coffee, he thought, negotiating his way around the end of the library tables. The decisions came in staccato, strobe-like flashes of certainty. He turned for the hall slowly, arms spread out, clutching at the doorway as he came to it.

It was just a small fold in the rug, and under any other circumstances, he'd have seen it and stepped over it, no harm, no foul. But this time, he didn't and the toe of his boot somehow caught itself in that tiny little fold and brought him down, reflexes too slow to even get his hands in front of him.

He hit the floor with the side of his head that had taken the angel's blow. Not as hard as that had been but the starburst that filled his vision was bright enough. Consciousness fled ahead of a sea of black and Dean drifted away, his stomach churning miserably and his mind, for once, empty.

* * *

><p><em>You are clean.<em>

No.

_He sat in the chair, the light shining down on him, the rest of the room an inky black, shadows pressed against the edges of the light. He knew he was dreaming, knew that this wasn't real. Knew that in some other way, it was completely real. He couldn't lie here. Couldn't pretend to be something he wasn't. Looking at his hands, loosely clasped against his thighs, his breath whistled out as he let that out, admitted it. Faced it._

I'll never be clean.

_You are wrong._


	19. Chapter 19 Devil's Deal

**Chapter 19 Devil's Deal**

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

The woods stank of wet ash and the biting odour of charred greenwood. Toeing the remains of the pyre with his boot, Dean sucked in a deep breath, feeling that acrid, bitter smell go down into his lungs.

How many pyres had he made now? The question wandered through his mind and he turned away from the crumbling mound, following the almost-invisible trail back to the bunker. He didn't look up or around, keeping his gaze fixed on the ground. The illusions swam and lurched in his peripheral vision and sent fear thrumming along his nerves, but he ignored them, watching instead for the occasional octagonal brick that marked the way down to the tunnel in the hillside that led to the garage.

No shining black car sat in the aisle. He glanced over the others. The T-bird would get him where he needed to go, he thought vaguely as he went down the stairs to the elevator. He'd pick up clean tags on the way.

If he could figure out how to track the angel.

The banging and whirring of the cable, and the slight shudder of the cage as he rode up to the main level caught his attention. _Needed to check that_, he thought, staring up at the roof access door. _Get up to the top and make sure the whole system was greased properly_. The idea fled as soon as he pushed the cage door aside and stepped out into the hall.

His gear bag was sitting by the bottom of the staircase, and he veered around the situation table to pick it up, carrying its awkward weight with ease to the first table in the library and dumping it with a muted clank on the table's top.

Unzipping the bag, he began to pull out the items it held, life-long practised gaze flicking over each one, noticing with a faint sense of satisfaction that everything was clean, loaded and ready to go. As he set the shotgun, his sawn-off double-barrel, on the smooth, polished surface, the piles of notes, small stack of books and Kevin's phone caught his attention in the corner of his eye.

His parents. Jessica. Ash. Pamela. Anna. Jo. Ellen. Gwen. Rufus. Lisa and Ben. Frank. Bobby. Linda Tran. Pete and Irv and Abe. Kevin. Probably Garth as well.

Not all dead, but all ghosts. All haunting him.

Time stretched out without him noticing it, standing there, one hand loosely curled around the bag's handle, the other flat on the table beside the gun. He'd never kidded himself about the deaths that lay on him. Never tried to pretend that the buck didn't stop right where he was standing.

_I guess that's what I do. I let down the people I love._

That memory stole in silently and Dean looked down at the table, not seeing the weapons or the bag, not seeing his hand on the handle, nails rimed in blood and grease.

He'd wanted to be a hero. Had wanted to be like his father. He'd wanted to go back, the three of them together, hunting, backing each other up. Then he'd just wanted peace. A family of his own. Someplace to be someone else, no more pain and deaths on him. He wasn't either hero or family material, he acknowledged, very slowly, his breath trickling out of him with the thought, those last, tattered shreds of his hopes slipping away from him without fanfare.

What he was … what he would always be, was a hunter.

The world snapped back around him, the seconds ticking at their usual rate, no longer elasticised outward, colours and angles and laws returning to surround him.

He would hunt the angel down and he would kill it, and that thought felt real. It felt solid and do-able.

Revenge had never been a good idea. But prevention, well, what they said about prevention was that it was a shitload better than a cure. He was too late for the cure anyway, so his own personal war on the fallen would be along the lines of preventative measures. No more Heaven. He could probably send a lot of them down to the other place.

Angel sword. Shotgun, sawn-off. Shotgun, pump. Colt, automatic. Six boxes of shells and cartridges for each, one of them holding silver, two holding the engraved bullets for demons. His eyes narrowed slightly as he thought of the angel swords half-melted and abandoned in his workshop. He'd need those. He needed a one-stop drop on the fucking dicks with wings more than he'd ever needed it for the demons.

The knock on the order's outer door was soft, he heard it anyway, his entire sensory system trained to notice soft noises. Climbing the stairs, he opened the door and looked at the angel standing there.

"Dean."

"Cas," he said, stepping back as Cas walked through the door.

"Why isn't this place warded?" the angel asked, his tone almost accusing.

"Haven't had time," Dean answered with a shrug as he closed the door and followed his friend down the stairs. "Look at you, all suited up and back in the game," he added, mouth lifting to one side humourlessly at the angel's return to the familiar ensemble.

Cas slowed as he crossed the room and walked up the steps to the library, looking back at Dean over his shoulder. He noted the smile hadn't reached Dean's eyes as he looked down at the trench coat he was wearing over a white button-down shirt and black pants. He'd felt strangely incomplete without it, but the one he'd acquired wasn't the same as Jimmy's, a slightly different cut, and a different colour, and it was still bothering him, those differences.

Lifting his gaze and looking back at the man now standing at the table, he realised something had changed. Dean was shoving the weapons into the bag, adding ammunition and sachets of ingredients. Beyond the lack of other sounds in the building, there was an emptiness in the man as well, he thought, the idea making him uneasy.

Increasing his awareness of his surroundings, of every thing, living or inanimate in the bunker, the angel's eyes were almost closed as he listened and felt throughout every square inch of the building. There was no one else here.

"Dean. What happened here?" the angel asked. "What's wrong?"

The last gun went into the bag and Dean yanked on the zipper, closing it before he looked around at Cas, his face twisting into an expression the angel didn't know how to decipher.

"Siddown, Cas." He pushed the bag aside and pulled out a chair, dropping into it and folding his arms on the table as he waited.

Cas drew a chair back from the table and sat down and Dean ducked his head, wondering where to start.

"What happened to Sam when you stopped the trials, Dean?" Cas asked softly and he looked up, nodding in relief at the words. That was the right place to start.

* * *

><p>It took him nearly an hour to tell Cas what had happened. With the benefit of hindsight, he couldn't help but see how Sam would take that story, how he would feel about it. Shoving those less-than-fucking-helpful thoughts aside, he tried to keep it as prosaic as he could for the angel.<p>

"Because of the prayer, every dick in the country knew where I was," he said, his regret at that flicking over his face. "I got rid of a couple, but more were coming and then Sam … when I got back into the room, the angel didn't have enough strength and Sam was crashing."

"What did the angel say?"

"Said that Sam was dying and there weren't any good options left," Dean told him, that memory closing his throat. He cleared it and took a breath. "Only bad ones. I asked him what they were."

He looked up as Cas looked way, seeing the grimace before the angel could hide it. "Sammy was dying, Cas," he said, hearing the edge of the plea for someone to understand in his voice with an inward wince. "What was I supposed to do?"

"The angel told you that possession was the only way for him to keep Sam alive?"

"Yeah." He really didn't want to hear that the angels had another way to save someone with the injuries his brother had. Really didn't want to know there'd been another way.

Cas nodded. "He was being truthful then. He could have used the power of Sam's soul to heal the damage. It is a slow process that way but it would be the only way that would be safe for Sam."

_Safe for Sam. The only way it would be safe for Sam_. The words hit Dean unexpectedly hard. He hadn't realised exactly how much he'd needed to believe it was the only way, that he'd done the best he could, until Cas confirmed it. The steel bands that had been wrapped around his chest since he'd come to and seen the prophet lying dead on the floor eased suddenly and he tipped his head back at the rush of emotion they released, feeling it prick and swell behind his eyes.

"I thought," he said, voice cracking slightly as he stared sightlessly at the ceiling. "I thought there might've been something else, using my soul or something …"

Cas' mouth pursed slightly. "That would have been a possibility," he admitted cautiously. "Had you been someplace safe enough to avoid interruption for several days. In the situation you have described, no."

"Uh … right."

"Sam didn't consent, did he?"

Dean swallowed and looked at him. "No. I – I had to trick him."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah." Dean felt the relief, the certainty that he'd done what he could disappear abruptly as he looked away from the angel's expression. No one had to say out loud that despite his efforts, despite trying to do the right thing and do his job and save his brother, none of it had worked. Sam could be fine. Or he could've been cast off by the angel and left to die somewhere … anywhere. And Kevin … he hadn't even fucking warned Kevin.

"Well, sorry don't pay the bills, does it?" he said, getting up, turning away. He stopped as another thought hit him, one that had drifted in and out of his mind for the last week. He turned back to Cas.

"Why couldn't Sam get rid of Lucifer, when Lucifer was in control?" he asked. "Why didn't you tell us it was even possible?"

Cas met his gaze steadily. "Sam wanted to take Lucifer back to the Cage," he replied. "The only way to do that was to keep him there, hold onto him. And, Lucifer knew, I think, what Sam had planned. He would not have let Sam out of the boundaries of his mind long enough for Sam to be able to … rid himself of the angel, as you say."

Nodding, Dean turned away. Even if he'd been able to get rid of the devil, it wouldn't have helped, he thought to himself. Just as everything he was learning wouldn't have helped Ash. Or Ellen and Jo. Or Rufus … or Bobby.

"We gotta to find that sonofabitch," he grated.

"Dean," Cas said, his voice low. "If the angel possessing Sam isn't Ezekiel, who is it?"

"Dead man walking," Dean said as he turned around to face Cas. That was at the top of his To Do list.

"You want to destroy him?" Cas looked at him doubtfully.

"Damn right."

"You kill an angel, its vessel dies too," Cas said, his brow furrowing with concern.

"You think I don't know that?" Dean asked him, walking back to the table slowly. He leaned on the edge, lifting his head to look at Cas. "If I don't end Sam, and that halo burns him out … god, I was so stupid."

"You were stupid for the right reasons," Cas said, getting to his feet and leaning across the table, trying to meet the hunter's gaze.

Dean exhaled. "Yeah, like that matters."

"It does!" Castiel walked around the table. "Sometimes that's all that matters."

_What happened? _His father's voice in his mind_. I–I–I just went out._

Straightening a little, Dean shook off the memory. _Only job I had an' I screwed it up_.

"Listen to me," Cas broke through the thoughts, his voice harsh. "Sam is strong. If he knew an angel was possessing him, he could fight. He could cast the angel out."

Looking down at his hands, curled around the back of the chair, his knuckles standing out white through the skin over them, Dean sucked in a deeper breath. He couldn't waste time on recriminations, not right now. Every second he wasted was another second that Sam got further away, better hidden. He let go of the chair and looked at the angel, straightening up and turning to him.

"Maybe," he allowed. "But as far as I know, he's in the dark. We had a spell, it didn't last long enough. I don't think Sam knows how, an' I don't know how we could clue him in."

He saw Cas' expression change suddenly, the angel's gaze cutting to one side. "You remember Samandriel?"

Dean frowned at him. "Alfie?"

Cas looked at him. "Samandriel. He was tortured, Dean, by Crowley."

"Yeah, I saw the setup," Dean said, a flickering memory of the screws going into the angel's head vivid in his mind's eye. "What?"

"Before I killed him, he told me that Crowley had gotten in, had somehow bypassed both the conscious control of his vessel and his own control. He said that Crowley knew about the angel tablet." He looked up at Dean. "We might be able to do that here. Might be able to–to bypass the angel and talk directly to Sam."

"And you think that would work?" Dean asked dubiously. "You said the demon bypassed the vessel's consciousness too."

"I think that we have a chance," Cas said. "But you won't like it."

Dean snorted in frustration. "For fuck's sake, Cas, I don't like any of this! Where do we start?"

"With Crowley."

"What?" The hunter's gaze snapped up and bored into the angel. "Fuck no!"

"I told you you wouldn't like it," Cas said. "Crowley was the one who gained access to Samandriel's coding, Dean. We don't have anyone else – or the time to find anyone else – who could do it."

Have to suck that one up, Dean thought angrily, knowing the angel was right and wanting to argue the point anyway. Crowley tainted everything he got near. He had no idea how to prevent the demon from fucking Sam over worse than he already was if they did somehow find the angel and manage to restrain it long enough for him to get past its defences.

He stared at the floor for a long second and then looked up, nodding at Cas. "C'mon."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Utica, New York<strong>_

The bar was small and dimly lit, front windows painted over and allowing a small amount of daylight in but not all that much. It was quiet, Metatron thought, it had that in its favour. And it had a useful reminder for the angel he was meeting here.

The bartender moved behind the scarred timber counter and stopped in front of him. "Get you anything else?"

"I'm good, thanks," the scribe said, taking another sip of the marguerita on the bar. It was good, not as good as it would've been further west, but quite drinkable. He heard the door open behind him and smiled into the glass.

The thump of the bag on the counter beside him brought a wider smile and he turned as Gadreil unzipped the pack and showed him the two stone tablets inside. "Any trouble?"

"Killing Thaddeus was easy," Gadreil said, his satisfaction evident in his voice. "He had it coming."

"The prophet?"

"That was ... less easy," the angel said, his expression becoming stony.

Taking a file from his bag, Metatron pushed it across in front of the angel. "He was a threat," he said coolly as the angel opened the file to see a collection of newspaper cuttings filling it. Gadreil looked at them. Death reports. Across the world.

"No more prophets," Metatron confirmed, taking another sip of his drink. "No one to read the tablets."

"How did you do this?"

"Three thousand years and a lot of reading," the scribe said with a sigh. "All worth it, however. And what about Dean Winchester?"

The file closed as Gadreil's hand fell onto the counter and he turned to look at the archangel. "His name was not included."

"Not much for seizing the initiative, are we?" Metatron said, leaning back slightly on the stool and sighing. "Gadreil, we are writing our own epic story here. And to paraphrase a great writer, to make that work, sometimes you have to kill your darlings." He grimaced at the blank look the angel gave him.

"Your next target," he added, sliding a folded napkin across the bar to the angel.

Gadreil looked down at it. A name and an address was printed under the fold. "How many more lives do I have to take?"

"As many as I deem necessary," the scribe told him. "It is not your place to ask questions. It is your place to obey. You want to be my second in command? Prove you're ready. Prove you're loyal."

Turning away abruptly, he picked up his glass. "Or don't. Walk away. Go back to being Gadreil, the heretic; the disobedient, the sap … Heaven's longest-running joke."

He could feel the angel's anger, seething behind a mask of control. The next kill would be the decider, he thought. It would make or break the angel's doubts, one way or the other. There were many of them out there, looking for a way back. The necromancer had been right about that. He could control them, play them, with the right leverage. Gadreil was useful only if he made the right decision.

"I will meet you again, here. In six days' time." He finished the drink and looked at him. "If you are not there, I will let it be known, to every angel on the planet who can hear me, that you are free. And here. And have betrayed us all again."

He slid off the stool and walked to the door without looking back. There was a faint noise as he vanished from the open doorway, unnoticed by the patrons, the bar's timber and glass door closing on its own.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

Crowley blinked as the lights came on and the doors opened, eyes widening fractionally as he saw the angel following Dean into the room.

"What a pleasant surprise, Cas," he said, smiling at him.

Dean let his breath out in an exasperated exhale as he reached into his back pocket for the syringe of blood he'd drawn.

"Here's the deal," he said, waving the syringe in front of Crowley. "You're gonna tell us how to hack an angel, and I'm gonna give you some of the good stuff."

Crowley's eyes narrowed as he looked at the syringe. "Yours?"

"Human blood," Dean said, keeping eye contact as he tapped a hand on his arm. "Fresh from the tap."

The demon's mouth stretched out in a wide, humourless grin. "You went to confession, Dean? That must've taken weeks. And your atonement? Lemme guess … a year's worth of Hail Mary's? I'll pass."

Dean repressed the sharp and almost overwhelming desire to shoot the demon. A few times. His blood wasn't purified, he'd known that. He hadn't realised Crowley had been keeping track of the requirements of the third trial so accurately.

"What do you want then?" Castiel asked abruptly.

"Well," Crowley said, looking over to him. "For starters … a massage. Between the sitting and the chair and the shackles, the body gets a little stiff."

"Yeah, well I ain't rubbing you," Dean said, nose wrinkling up in distaste.

"God no," Crowley agreed instantly. "Get Kevin. His tiny fists can work wonders –"

"Kevin's dead," Cas cut him off.

"Oh," Crowley said, looking back at Dean. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"Don't –" Cas said, striding to the table in front of the demon and leaning over it. "– pretend you care. You tried to kill him."

Crowley slouched down in the chair, staring at the angel. "Don't pretend you care either, Cas. Had him by the balls when you needed information from the angel tablet, didn't you?" He lifted a brow at the angel's expression. "Oh, Kev had a bit to get off his chest," he remarked, looking at his fingernails. "All the fun times."

His eyes crinkled up a little as the angel turned away. "I told him this was going to happen. I was the only one who tried to warn him," he added, his gaze shifting to Dean. "I told him to run."

"From what?" Dean asked.

"You," Crowley said frankly. "How many times am I going to have to say this? People in your general vicinity don't have much in the way of a life-span."

Dean felt Cas turn to look at him, forcing himself to keep his gaze on Crowley, to keep his face expressionless, to keep everything down and under lock and key. For a moment, Crowley stared back, then he nodded slightly as if the hunter had confirmed something for him.

"Now, I can't teach you how to crack open an angel," he said, looking down at the table top. "It's more … art … than science. But I can do it for you. All I ask in return is a little field trip."

He looked up and smiled. "Dying for some fresh air, would you believe? Chains on," he added, holding up his hands as far as he could. "Naturally."

"No." The answer came unequivocally, and Dean turned away, walking to the door.

"No?" Crowley's brows lifted delicately. "Because if I'm 'Plan A', I'm sure you have a totally viable, much better 'Plan B'?"

Hands balling into fists, Dean stopped at the doorway, his back to the room. Crowley was right. His stomach churned at the knowledge. There was no plan at all. Just hope that maybe he could salvage his brother, mostly okay, from the mess he'd made.

Cas swung around and crossed the room as he slowly turned back to look at the demon.

"You can't be considering this!"

"With the chains on, he can't do anything –" Dean argued half-heartedly, looking at the angel.

"It's Crowley!" Cas' grating voice cut him off. "He can always do something."

"Looks like we need a tie-breaker," Crowley noted from the table. "Go get Moose, Squirrel."

Dean looked away and Crowley saw why they were in such contention.

"Unless…" he prodded. "Unless, of course, you can't?"

He watched the muscle at the point of the hunter's jaw jump, the angel turning away completely, and he smiled. "That's why you're here, isn't it? The poor, giant baby's in trouble again, isn't he?"

Dean walked back into the room, his expression neutral and his voice even as he asked, "Are you done?"

"Depends," Crowley said, enjoying himself. "Do we have a deal?"

"Yeah."

"Excellent," Crowley said, lifting his chin. "When do we leave?"

"Soon as I can scrounge up a ride."

"Well," Cas said diffidently, looking at the floor. "I have a vehicle. It stopped a few miles from here, inexplicably."

Dean looked at the angel, his mouth twisting up to one side. "Inexplicably?"

Cas shrugged. "It just stopped."

"Uh huh," he said, and walked around the table to the back of the demon's chair, reaching into his jeans pocket for the small wrench that fit the bolts to the collar around Crowley's neck.

Crowley stretched his neck and rolled his shoulders as the collar hit the ground, getting up slowly from the chair and turning to look at Dean. "You don't need to look so worried, I keep my deals."

"Right." Dean gestured to the doorway, following the demon closely as they walked out. "If I even see a sign that you're trying to work something up, there'll be a lockdown bullet in your brain and I'll bury you in pieces around the country."

Crowley gave a mock shiver and fluttered his eyelashes slightly. "Promise?"

Dean gestured abruptly to the hall and Crowley walked out of the dungeon, taking in exaggeratedly deep breaths. The ride down to the garage was silent, although Crowley made a face at the hiss of the cable and the bounce as they stopped.

Looking at the cars along the garage's immaculate walls, Crowley lifted an questioning brow. "What's wrong with these?"

"Those two are two-seaters – you wanna ride in the trunk?" Dean asked caustically, going to the gasoline tank pump with an empty fuel can and waving a hand at the T-bird and bright red Sprite. "And the Commander and Model-T are a bit conspicuous for chauffeuring an angel and a demon."

He would've loved to have taken the T-bird, with its three-twelve V8 for a nice long, leisurely drive. Or any of them. He still hadn't found the time to take Dorothy's Excelsior out for a spin, he realised, hanging the pump back on its hook when the can was full. And it didn't seem likely he'd find it anytime soon.

"C'mon."

* * *

><p>Myra Frankston turned as she heard the voices coming down the street. The three men would have drawn anyone's gaze, one in a trench coat and tie, next to him a shorter, barrel-chested man in a black suit with a jacket clumsily held over his hands. Beside and a little in front of the pair, a taller, broad-shouldered man walked with long, impatient strides, a red can of gas in one hand and a stony expression indicating the problem.<p>

It was the man in the middle that drew her, though. Black hair, dark eyes that flicked from side to side as he walked, the timbre of his voice sharpened by the sarcastic comments, spoken in an accent that once heard was unforgettable … that man she knew.

They stopped several houses down, in front of a parked car. She bent and picked up her dog, turning and carrying it back inside the house.

* * *

><p>Crowley looked at the Continental and snorted. "Really? What are you, a pimp?"<p>

"I like it," Cas said shortly.

Dean walked to the driver's door and turned the key, the engine's laboured attempt to start telling him what he'd already suspected. "Yeah, out of gas."

He opened the cap to the gas tank and pushed the spout of the can he held into it, tipping it up and pouring the gas in.

Crowley looked at the pale gold car thoughtfully. "Riddle me this, Boy Wonder … why do you need the wheels, Cas?"

"When you betray us, I'll be the one to carve out your heart," Cas hissed at him.

"Oh, Cas, such a flirt," Crowley grinned, pursing his lips at the angel.

Dean exhaled loudly as he replaced the tank cap and returned to the driver's door, turning the key and popping the trunk lid as the engine rumbled into life. He tossed the empty can into the trunk and looked over the roof at them.

"Shotgun." Crowley moved to the passenger door.

"Uh, wrong. You're in the back."

The demon sighed as the angel's lips twitched into a smug smile, opening the rear door.

"Hey, you too," Dean added, shaking his head as Cas reached for handle of the passenger door. "Keep an eye on him."

He opened the driver's door and slid in, eyes automatically moving over the dash and gears and his feet finding the pedals without thought.

"Hey, watch the leg," Crowley snapped behind him.

"You're on my side," Castiel grumbled, trying to force the demon to move further into the car.

"Hey, hey – hey!" Dean put the car into gear and closed his eyes as the rear end lifted and dropped with an exaggerated slow-motion gasp.

The sudden desire for his brother to be there, to see this, him driving a fucking pimp-mobile with an angel and demon in the backseat, just about stopped his airways completely. He could fix this, he thought desperately. He could figure it out and fix it and nothing would ever be the same but at least … at least Sam would be alive and himself.

"Crowley, where'm going?"

"Louisville. Kentucky," the demon said, wriggling to find a more comfortable position in the back seat.

* * *

><p>Myra hadn't been Myra for three months now. Myra's husband, Dexter, was lying on the basement floor, his skin fallen in and bones poking through what remained. The flies and maggots and worms and beetles had come and gone. She'd told her neighbours that Dex had gone to see his mother, help her get settled into a nursing home. Sooner or later that lie was going to bounce back on her, but so far, it'd been enough.<p>

Watching the Lincoln heave and shudder its way down the street, she let the curtain of the living room window drop and looked around. "Muffins? Here, baby, Momma has something for you, honey."

The little dog ran into the room. The voice was the same but the woman had an underlying smell that it didn't understand. A sharp smell. It wasn't always present, but it was there now and the dog's tail stopped wagging and drooped as it sidled unwillingly closer.

"Good boy," Myra-who-wasn't-Myra said soothingly. She scooped the mutt up and carried it to the laundry, stopping to bend and pick up the stainless dog bowl on the way.

Animal blood wasn't nearly as efficacious as human. The communication between the planes was difficult enough but it couldn't be helped. Any more local disappearances and even the half-asleep sheriff and his deputy who serviced the small town would start doing the math and she didn't want anything to disturb her cover here, not now.

The angel had blazed out. And she knew who the man had to be. There was only one man who would be walking around with the angel who'd brought down Heaven and the ex-King of Hell.

_Dean Winchester._

"I found him," she said to the bowl of quietly bubbling blood held in her hands. On the floor at her feet, Muffins' eyes were glazing over, the first flies settling on them. "He's with Dean Winchester, and the angel, Castiel. They're on the move."

Her lips curved up in an unconscious smile at the words of the archdemon.

"Yes. I'll look," she said, nodding obediently. The blood stopped moving and she set the bowl on the counter by the big sink, her eyes black, from corner to corner.

Winchester had been carrying a small can of gas, the sort that fillup stations sold to get you out of a jam when you run out of fuel a few miles down the road. Abaddon had told them that the order's hideout had been somewhere in the state. The memories, for which she'd resurrected the body of Josie Sands, had degenerated somewhat over the time of her dismemberment and burial, and then a little more after the torching and she didn't have an exact location.

The demon felt a pleasant frisson of excitement run up through her meatsuit's nervous system. What if it was here? In this nothing little town in the middle of the country? She would be rewarded beyond her wildest dreams if she could guide the Fallen to it precisely.

Turning away from the bowl and the drained carcass on the floor, she hurried back to the hall and picked up her keys, phone and coat. They had to have walked to the Lincoln. The town was small. Her odds were good.

She pulled the door closed behind her, waving and smiling brightly at her nosy next-door neighbour, Mrs Adler, as she hurried to her car.

* * *

><p><em><strong>I-70 E, Kansas<strong>_

_Wait, you knew I wouldn't want this – you knew it and you went ahead anyway!_

Dean's eyes closed as Sam's accusation filled his thoughts. Ahead, the road was dark and almost empty, the headlights picking out the lines and reflecting them back through the windshield, the landscape to either side dark and formless. He'd changed the plates in the long-term lot of Topeka's airport and they'd be in Louisville by morning.

_People in your general vicinity don't have much in the way of a life-span._

The demon's casual verdict razored through him again. He couldn't argue with it, couldn't say it wasn't true, no matter that he'd tried to help, tried to save, to protect.

_Demons lie._

The voice cut through the pain momentarily and Dean sucked in a breath, eyes narrowing as he tried to focus on the road in front of him. They did, all the time. They also told the truth when it would cut as deeply.

In the back seat, Cas was sitting close by the window, watching the darkness. In the middle, Crowley was slumped, head tipped back and eyes half-closed. Neither angel nor demon had spoken for the last hundred miles.

He wouldn't do anything any differently, he thought, flexing his hands against the wheel. Wouldn't have let Sam die alone in Stull. Wouldn't have left him soulless. Wouldn't have let him die in the hospital room hooked up to a dozen machines. It wasn't something he was capable of doing, letting go.

It was why he hadn't, wouldn't, couldn't deal with everything that happened in the last five years. Ten years. His lifetime.

_Everything isn't your responsibility._

He shifted uncomfortably on the seat. The angel had proved that some of his memories, his perspective on what happened, hadn't been true. Hadn't been accurate. There'd been no time since to look at other memories, to try to see if those distortions had been there as well. How would he even know, he wondered morosely, shifting slightly on the leather upholstery again. How would he know what was real and what was his own guilt – for what his father had done, for what he'd done, for failing to protect those he'd loved and needed.

_This one, you'll like him, Dean_. Alastair's voice whispered in the depths of his mind. _Ravaged a family, in their own home. Not just one either._

The memory came back, clear and poisonously stark. The soul had been black, along the edges, and he'd seen the history, his shocked rage overcoming every shred of control he'd had as he'd torn it apart.

The demon had been laughing, somewhere behind him. _Slower, Dean, make it last_.

He blinked the images away, swallowing hard. That one had deserved it, he thought shakily. How many others?

From the back seat, Crowley's eyes opened and Dean looked in the mirror as he saw the demon move a little.

"It was Hell, Dean," Crowley said softly, as if he'd seen that memory, floating in the car's interior between them. "Every soul is down there for a reason."

Cas turned to look at the demon, his gaze shifting to the front and catching Dean's in the mirror briefly. Dean looked away, jaw tightening as he stared at the road.

_You are clean._

His fingers closed hard around the wheel. The pain had left him when the razor was in his hands. The darkness had grown inside, he hadn't been able to see it, but he'd felt it. Not clean. Outcast.

_What's the matter? You don't think you deserve to be saved?_

No, he'd bottled that response in his throat, staring at the angel. _No._

Hearing the rustle behind him, he wondered how much of his thoughts were out on display for the entities behind him. He could feel Cas wanting to say something, and he wasn't going to have that conversation, not with Crowley filing away every moment of weakness for his own purposes, anyway.

"We can't take Sam back to the bunker," he said, forestalling whatever the angel had been gearing up to say. "We need someplace to do this."

"Got it covered," Crowley said comfortably, his eyelids dropping again. "I've got a few places, here and there, that'll be suitable for this job."

Dean's mouth thinned out as he thought of the demon's various real estate holdings.

"Cas, anything on angel radio?"

The angel shook his head. "There have been some unexplained deaths, that's all."

"What kind of deaths?" Dean asked suspiciously, glad to be able to deal with the here and now.

Cas tilted his head slightly, giving the impression of listening to something. "Murders, by another angel," he said, his expression becoming puzzled. "Not authorised by either Malachi or Bartholomew."

"New player?"

"Or an old one," Cas said, frowning at him through the rear view mirror. "One of Heaven's guards was killed two days ago."

"Guards?"

"Even Heaven has its prisons, Dean," Cas said repressively.

Dean flicked a glance at him over his shoulder as he caught the edge in the angel's voice. "Where you were taken? When we found Jimmy?"

"Even so."

It was obvious that Cas didn't want to talk about it. Dean looked in the mirror again, seeing the gleam of Crowley's eyes between the slitted lids. And definitely not in front of the demon.

Along the horizon ahead of them, he could make out the edge of the land as the sky began to brighten. Another three hours and they'd be there.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Louisville, Kentucky<strong>_

Dean turned into the parking lot, ignoring the curious stares of several passers-by as the car's exhaust scraped over the sloping driveway entrance on one of its lower gyrations. He pulled into a slot and stopped the engine thankfully. At home, with a few hours to spare, he could get rid of the fucking lift kit, but they weren't at home, they didn't have a few hours to spare and he was just going to have to put up with the crappy handling for a bit longer.

"Waldroff Financial?" he asked the demon, looking out the window at the building's logo. "Really?"

Crowley smiled as he slid awkwardly across the back seat to the door.

Castiel led the way across the lot to the building's main entrance, Crowley following him with his hands hidden by the coat, and Dean behind the demon, looking around the building casually as they reached the glass doors and walked through, the layout already fixed in his mind.

"I don't have an appointment, luv," Crowley said to the immaculate blonde at the front desk. "Just dropping by to see an old friend. Cecily Whittaker, Acquisitions."

"If you'd like to take a seat, sir, I'll see if she's free," the blonde said brightly.

Crowley turned around and nodded to the long sofa by the doors, Cas and Dean reluctantly following him and sitting down to either side.

"Your source is in here?" Dean asked, looking around doubtfully.

"And she can track anything," Crowley affirmed. "Even our little lost Samantha."

"How?" Castiel turned his head to look at him.

"Well, this place isn't really … a global financial consulting group," Crowley said with a mocking smile. "It's an NSA listening post."

"And what are they listening for?"

"Everything." Crowley shrugged. "The government's quite the voyeur these days, and it's a good starting tap into their databases."

Dean shook his head. "Unbelievable."

"Yes," Crowley agreed with a chuckle. "But workable."

"Mr Crowley?"

All three looked up at the security guard who stood in front of the sofa. "Ms Whittaker can see you now."

They got to their feet and the security guard looked from Cas to Dean. "Just Mr Crowley."

"I'll be listening to every word you say," Cas growled at Crowley as he stepped away from them to follow the guard.

Glancing back over his shoulder, Crowley grinned. "I'll make sure it's worth it."

Dean gave Cas a quelling look and dropped back onto the sofa, wondering if this was a scam for Crowley to slide out a back or side door while they sat here like chumps.

"Can you hear him?"

Cas nodded, his expression pained as he listened to the demon's cheerful patter with the guard as he climbed the stairs and turned out of sight into a hallway on the mezzanine floor.

A moment later, Cas' expression changed. "The room he's entered has been warded."

"Awesome," Dean said, looking around the foyer. "Friggin' awesome."

"If he comes out –"

"Yeah, just sound the alarm if he makes a different turn from the way he went there," Dean cut him off sharply. He should have known it wasn't going to be as easy as it'd looked. Crowley had angles, every kind, every direction. It was the way he worked and he was damned sure that the demon would be getting a lot more information from his source than he was going to share.

* * *

><p>The office was large, clean surfaces and a cold, technological look, Crowley thought as he walked in. So very different from his own taste but then the demon sitting on the other side of the desk was much, much younger than he was.<p>

"Cecily, how are you?"

"Better than you," the slender brunette said, eyes flicking black briefly behind the rectangular lenses of her modern spectacles. "You're keeping questionable company, boss."

"Aren't I?" Crowley agreed, bored already. "I don't have a great deal of time, dear, so do bring me up to date with – let's say everything since the angels fell?"

"Abaddon was resurrected," she said, looking at him carefully. Crowley smiled inwardly as he noted her interest, but he nodded to encourage her to go on. "She's talking about taking over this plane."

"Yes, that I'd heard," he said. "What state is Heaven in now?"

"Angel-less, apparently." The petite demon leaned back in her chair. "Every angel fell, wings burned off. Heaven is closed and from all reports, there are at least two factions sizing each other up for the title."

"All reports?"

"We've taken about a dozen," she said, giving him a modest shrug. "Got a lot of intel on the general situation and some interesting information on more specific matters." Turning to look at the security camera footage playing in one corner of the closest monitor on her desk, she tilted her head toward it. "Including your travelling companions."

"Oh, yes?"

"The angels are after him, specifically." She leaned forward across the desk. "Seems that he had his Grace torn out when he Fell. Was actually human for a while."

"Human?" Crowley's eyes narrowed at her. "How human?"

"Completely," Cecily told him. "He was captured, quite recently. Cut the Grace from another angel and –" She waved a hand vaguely in the air. "Subsumed it, somehow. He's full-fledged again, minus wings, of course."

"And who was the unlikely party that captured him?"

"Malachi's controlling perhaps three thousand of what used to be the Host, plus the simpletons," she said. "Bartholomew's controlling less of the soldiers, more of the administration."

Crowley snorted. "That's unsurprising."

"There's someone else running a side-game."

"How do you know?"

"One of the teams bagged another source today," she said, throwing a look at her screens over her shoulder. "This one says that they're worried, there've been two murders not attributed to either leading faction, and one of them was an angel called Thaddeus."

Crowley's face brightened slightly. "Thaddeus. Really?"

"You know him?"

"Oh, yes, one of Heaven's less savoury guards. Should've been down with us, with his tastes." Crowley leaned forward. "And what about Hell?"

"No one is doing their job," she told him, nose wrinkling up in irritation. "I send oodles of data down there every week, but does Hell give a damn? No."

"Well. Of course, with Abaddon in charge –?" Crowley let the end of the question hang.

"Oh, that 'b' with an 'itch' ain't the boss, yet, Crowley," Cecily said frankly. "I mean, she's taken control of the more aggro types, but most of us are waiting to see who takes the top job – you or her."

"They're still afraid of me."

She looked at him, her gaze dropping to the coat in his lap. "Probably because they don't know you're in cuffs," she said disparagingly.

"Speaking of which –" He lifted his hands to show the engraved handcuffs. "Do they come off?"

Cecily leaned forward, studying the sigils that were etched into the metal. "Not without a key," she told him.

"Pity," he said. "I need you to do me a favour," he said, letting his hands fall back into his lap and picking up the sheet of paper with the Impala's tags on it. "Can you find this car?"

She took the paper and looked at it, swivelling around to the keyboard and screens on the other side of the desk. "Shouldn't be a problem."

"Nice to know someone's still loyal," Crowley said, watching her enter the criteria.

He saw her small smile. "Ah, Cecily, still playing both sides?"

Hitting Enter on the keyboard, the demon threw an arch look over her shoulder at him. "Wouldn't you?"

* * *

><p>"This is taking too damned long," Dean muttered, leaning forward.<p>

"He hasn't come out of the office," Cas said, looking at the stairs again.

"He's getting information on everything that's been happening since he's been on lockdown," Dean countered, turning his head to look at the angel. "How's that gonna be a good thing?"

"What could he learn?" Cas tried to be optimistic.

Dean scowled at the floor. Depending on his source and how good the demon was with all the information a government agency listening outfit could get, he thought the ex-King of Hell could learn quite a bit.

The faint click of leather soles on the tiled stairs caught at man and angel and they looked up, seeing Crowley strolling unhurriedly down the stairs toward them, a sheet of paper in one hand.

"Your phallus on wheels just ran a red light in Somerset, Pennsylvania, ten minutes ago," Crowley said, handing the sheet to Dean.

"Six hours," Dean said, turning for the doors and calculating the route. "Let's go."

* * *

><p><em><strong>I-64 E, Kentucky<strong>_

Glancing down at the fuel gauge an hour and a half later, Dean looked at the signs coming up and turned off at the next exit.

"Where are we going?" Cas asked from the back seat, leaning forward to look at him.

"Need to fill up," Dean grunted, tapping the dash above the gauge. "See, when the indicator's gettin' close to the little 'E'? Means that you need to put gas in the tank."

There was a breathy snort from behind him and he saw Cas turn and give the demon a filthy look, from the corner of his eye.

"Won't take long," he told the angel. "You want anything, now's the time to grab it 'cause we won't be stopping again."

He pulled into the fill up and parked next to the pumps, ignoring the snickering from the teenaged driver of the car beside him. Opening the fuel cap, he set the pump on auto and headed for the store, glancing into the back seat as he walked around the car to see the angel and demon having some kind of disagreement. He ignored that too.

There was no let up from the pressure he could feel, pounding in his temples. Not until he had Sam back and the angel possessing him gone. And that plan was going to be a bitch of unknown proportions, he thought, straight-arming his way through the bathroom door.

_I understand you've been something of an exception in your circle_, the demon'd said to him, his shoulder on fire and his vision filled with sparkling dots as he'd tried to hold on to consciousness. _The only one who's never been possessed_.

The memory was accompanied by the faintly bitter taste of blood in his mouth and Dean zipped up, hawking back and spitting into the bowl as he backed out of the stall.

He hadn't, but his brother had. Too many times.

Standing at the sink, he turned on the cold tap, letting it run over his hands then filling them and splashing the water over his face. As much as he wanted to deny it, he knew there was no possibility of Sam being able to forgive what he'd done. Of all the things that lay between them, that had gouged out the fucking crevasses and schisms between them, this would be the worst. His brother would see it as the worst.

The cold water took a little of his fatigue and forced the pain back from his eyes and he looked up, into the spotted and smeared mirror above the sink, seeing himself clearly. If there'd been any other way, he would've taken it. Any other way at all. If he could've exchanged his life for Sam's, he'd have done without a second's thought.

None of that helped. There'd been the one way and he would accept the consequences for his decision. He'd lose his brother but at least Sam would be alive.

Wiping his sleeve over the water dripping from his face, he turned from the sink abruptly and left the room, grabbing a coffee from the machine and a couple of cellophane wrapped donuts from the stand next to it. Another four hours to Somerset, he thought tiredly, paying for the food and gas and heading back to the car. Maybe a little less if he could get a bit more out of the Continental.

He unhooked the hose and set it back on the pump, opening the driver's door and sliding in. A flickered look in the rear-view mirror showed Cas and Crowley on opposites sides, looking out their respective windows. He felt a brief pang of sympathy for his father and started the engine.

* * *

><p>They'd been on the interstate for another hour when Crowley straightened his position and cleared his throat.<p>

"Have either of you heard of an organisation called the Prometheus Group?" he asked, looking at his fingernails.

Dean glanced at Cas through the mirror, seeing the angel unbend slowly and shake his head.

"No, why?" he asked.

"No reason, just wondered if it'd come up at all in the last year," Crowley disclaimed, shrugging.

"Bullshit," Dean said, flicking another glance in the mirror. "What are they?"

"Well, they _were_ a splinter group of the Litteris Hominae," the demon told him. "But they incurred the wrath of the order and from what I heard had to scurry back into the woodwork."

"And?"

"And my contact –" he said, nodding vaguely behind them. "– told me that they were back in business."

"Business – doing what?"

"Hard to say," Crowley admitted. "At the moment, they seem to be running laboratories."

"Why are you telling us this?" Castiel asked, turning around to look at the demon. "What do you know about them?"

"Not enough." The demon looked at the angel. "I just thought you might want a heads' up on another set of possible players."

"Really?" Dean asked. "Like we don't have enough mooks to keep track of?"

Crowley shook his head, the chains around his wrists clinking softly as he lifted his hands placatingly. "Your choice. Just trying to be helpful."

"Yeah, an' I'll believe that when I'm dead," Dean muttered, loud enough for the demon to hear him.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Somerset, Pennsylvania<strong>_

Gadreil drove the black car slowly along the quiet, curving suburban street, his gaze picking out the numbers in front of each home unerringly. Away from the cities, here in the relative quiet of the suburbs, he found it disturbing to watch the lives of humanity. Children played on the crisp, green lawns, laughing and talking too loudly, confident in their safety and the unspoken promise of their lives. Women and men walked animals along the paths that ran next to the road, their faces unlined with worries, their gestures broad and expansive.

Like the angels, he thought, unaware that their doom was getting closer and closer, that all this would be gone when the angels started their war and the demon brought Hell to earth. He wondered if any would pay attention if he stopped the car, got out and told them their future.

Somehow, he didn't think they would.

The number on the house's front door matched the one on the paper in his hand and slowed, pulling into the verge and parking the car.

Behind the screening shrubs, a man was crouching beside a garden bed, next to the well-maintained house, his back to the road. Gadreil slowed, looking at him, one hand reaching into the inside pocket of his coat, fingers curling around the cool metal haft of the sword that was concealed there.

"Alexander Sarver?"

The man turned on his heel, straightening and standing as he did. For a moment, Gadreil saw only the vessel, a tall man, lean, with dark hair, dark eyes, clear pale skin and a wide mouth framed by a short-cut dark beard. Then he saw the vessel's eyes.

"Yeah?" Those eyes widened in recognition. "Gadreil?"

"Avner." Gadreil felt the shock oscillate through him, wave after wave, an earthquake that had no end.

"I thought you were dead," his old friend said, looking at him with the beginnings of a smile lifting his cheeks. "What are you doing here?"

"I–I" Gadreil stopped, Metatron's purpose curling out of the shock and into his mind as he stared at Avner. "What are you doing here?"

"Daddy! Daddy?" A little girl, perhaps six or seven years old, ran from the house to the man standing in front of him and Gadreil took a small step back as Avner picked her up, holding her close.

"Hey, Delilah," the angel said warmly. "This is Daddy's best friend." He looked from the girl's face to Gadreil's. "Can you say hi?"

"Hi."

Gadreil stared at her for a long moment. "You have a child?"

"I have a family, my friend," Avner smiled, kissing his daughter on the cheek and setting her down. He watched her run back to the house, then looked at Gadreil. "My wife and I are taking her to see a movie, Gadreil," he explained, a little uncomfortably. "Can you swing back in a few hours, so that we can talk?"

"Yes," Gadreil agreed. It would take him that long to understand what he'd been trapped into, he thought. "Yes, of course."

He watched the angel walk to the front door of the house, open it and go inside and he backed down to the road, turning fast as his feet reached the asphalt and striding to the car. Had the scribe done this deliberately to him? To test his loyalty? His obedience? Anger began to percolate under the thoughts, anger and a fierce, bright pain that surrounded his heart in wreaths of fire.

Isolation was Heaven's most potent punishment. Isolation from each other, from the comfort given and received on the euphonious frequencies of the stars and the spheres. Isolation from their Father's benevolence. From the dawn of Creation, it had been enough to compel obedience. Until Lucifer.

Always the Lightbringer, Gadreil thought savagely. Betrayer and deceiver. The most beautiful of angels and the most evil, the taint in him sprung from nothing and nowhere. Lucifer had refused to serve Man. Lucifer had slid into the Garden, disguised as a serpent, had offered Knowledge and had created dissatisfaction. And dissatisfaction had led to Sin.

Lucifer had challenged his brother and brought the First War to the earthly plane. And Lucifer had schemed and planned and risen, to wreak havoc on the world before being locked up again.

After the Fall of the Morningstar, Heaven's methods of punishment had changed. Evolved, some had said, those who'd devised and wrought the changes. They had been touched with the same taint that had existed in their brother. They had revelled in pain. They had tried to change the angels and they had succeeded. Fear brought wrath. Wrath brought pride, and pride had birthed envy and gluttony and lust and greed and sloth.

They had thought themselves immune to the Sin that had plagued the creation they had been entrusted to care for, but Sin had found them anyway.

Heaven had no dark places, no closed-in cells for the wretched angels who had committed the heinous crime of disobedience. Hell could not be used, the precedent too dangerous. The box had been fashioned from the most common components of the universe, and the guards had been left to their own devices to mete punishment on those in their custody. Perhaps some fool had really believed that all angels were created alike. More likely, he thought, no one had cared. So long as they were hidden, unseen and forgotten, it didn't matter what happened to them.

The road led along a long, narrow park and Gadreil pulled off, parking in the shadows of the trees that formed a boundary between the park and the small river meandering through it. His memories were too thick, too close, to concentrate on anything else and he listened to the silence surrounding the car, broken by the soft tick of the warm metal cooling, by the distant hum of traffic on a busier road.

He had already been imprisoned for more than forty thousand years when Avner had been thrown in. His crime had been warning a group of humans of an impending disaster. It mattered not that the humans couldn't have affected the lines in one way or another. The order had been given that no one would escape, and Avner had disobeyed.

After so long alone, he supposed it was only natural to seek friendship. Companionship. To learn to lean on each other when the guards came in and amused themselves. To comfort one another in the unspeakable pain.

Was his friend a target of the scribe's because he was a friend, he wondered bitterly? Or because his friend knew something that the scribe didn't want discovered?

* * *

><p>"Have a seat," Avner said, waving a hand toward the large, comfortable armchairs to either side of the hearth. Gadreil walked slowly through the room, his gaze taking in the shelving of books that lined some of the walls, interspersed with collections of framed images, of his friend, standing or sitting with a pretty red-haired woman, or the little girl he'd seen earlier. Avner smiled easily out of the frames. He looked happy, the angel thought, peering closer at the image.<p>

He turned away and sat uncomfortably in the chair, looking across a low table at his friend. There was no guile or deception in Avner's face, he realised. No trace of fear or doubt. Just an uncomplicated joy in seeing a friend again, one thought dead or lost.

"What is it you do here?" he asked, looking around at the comfortable room.

Avner's face creased up in a smile. "It's called a job," he said. "The world works on the exchange of services for money and as these things go it is not a bad exchange. I work for a company who provide support for products, mostly computers."

"And that entails?"

"Mostly? Like answering prayers, I suppose. I provide information, help when I can." He looked around. "It's not complicated and it pays the bills."

"You haven't changed," Gadreil said, leaning forward a little in the chair. "You always wanted to help."

"And it got me seven hundred years," Avner said with a slight shrug. "I am happier here and now than I ever could've been in Heaven, Gadreil. No matter what else had happened."

"Heaven is our home."

"Not mine," Avner said firmly. "This is my home. Humanity is not what we thought, my friend. Nothing like what the upper Spheres have told us."

Gadreil's mouth twisted up. "Ants … a virulent disease?"

The man laughed. "Yes, I remember that too." His expression smoothed to seriousness as he looked down. "They were wrong. There is so much we can do, down here, among them. They are lost, so much of the time. A simple nudge, sometimes, helps them to find what they unknowingly seek."

"And your vessel, Avner?" Gadreil asked dryly. "Is he happy?"

Avner looked down at his hands, clasped together between his knees. "This vessel was not a happy man before. He was – he lashed out at all around him." He looked up at Gadreil. "He consented to me, I think, because he knew he would destroy his family if he remained alone."

"Gadreil, Heaven might be lost to us, now and forever," he continued, his face and voice earnest and sincere. "But we have Paradise, right here. We have the chance to make things better, better than we ever could from the Divine plane."

"Malachi and Bartholomew will not allow that," Gadreil pointed out. "Even now they are gathering their armies."

"They will fail," Avner said certainly. "And then we can rebuild here, as our Father meant us to, I believe."

For a long moment, Gadreil didn't respond. He wanted to tell his friend of Metatron's offer. Of the chance to redeem himself. Of the chance to undo the wrongs of the past and rebuild, yes, rebuild Heaven the way it should've been. He didn't belong here, among humanity's chaos of emotion and irrationality.

"Avner, something has happened –"

"I know!" Avner cut him off excitedly. "This is our chance to be done with Heaven – no more rules or obedience or exile from everything we need. You'll see, Gadreil, when you let yourself go, when you accept them for everything that our Father gave them, and learn to love, to share that gift with them, everything changes."

"Avner, you say that now," Gadreil said, looking around the room. "Here. But if there was a chance, to return to our home, to be together, without the old ways, the old fighting …" He looked at his friend. "If there was a chance to make Heaven as it should've been – would you come with me?"

His answer was in the angel's eyes, widening slightly at the thought and Gadreil felt his heart contract in his vessel's chest.

"Gadreil, I am not a wise man, but I have found what I've searched for – the key to happiness – finding the one thing, the one thing that you want more than anything else, and never letting it go."

"What if there's a price?" Gadreil asked, looking away from his friend's face.

"There's always a price, we both know that all too well," Avner said. "But it's worth paying."

"I've found where I belong," Avner continued, the words coming out slowly, considered and carefully chosen. "What is there in Heaven that could equal the happiness and contentment I've found here, doing what I was made for and –?" He stopped himself for a moment, staring at his friend. "You and I were close, Gadreil. I would not have survived without you, I know that. And I want you to be here, to stay here so that our friendship can continue."

"I was blamed for something that was not of my doing, Avner."

"I know that," Avner said. "That's why I want you to stay. Here, that taint is gone. You can be free."

Gadreil looked up at him, his expression regretful. "It cannot be removed here, Avner. Only in Heaven, among our brothers. Here – here I am just hiding."

He got to his feet, waiting as Avner rose as well. "I can't live here, with them, my friend."

"You have no other choice, Gadreil," Avner said. "There is nothing left for any of us but this."

"You're wrong," the angel said. "There is another choice. I am only sorry you can't make it with me."

"What?" Avner looked down as the slim, silver sword dropped into his friend's hand from the inside of his sleeve. "Gadreil, no. I have a family, please, if our friendship meant anything to you, you cannot –"

"It meant everything to me," Gadreil said. A single stride took him to the man, and his hand flashed up to grip his shoulder as he drove the point of the sword into his chest. "I'm sorry."

Light poured from Avner's mouth and eyes, filling the room, casting out every shadow. Gadreil heard the song rise and fade as the light died away and he released his hold on the man, lowering him to the floor gently.

Metatron had given him the name deliberately, he thought, drawing his sword from the body and looking at the blood that coated his hands. A test. Both of his commitment to the scribe – and of himself. He could not now pretend that he would not do anything to return to Heaven, to return to what he'd once been, a trusted soldier of the Divine plane.

He turned away, walking out of the room and turning down the hall. Avner's wife and child were elsewhere. The killing would not be discovered until they returned home. At least, not by the humans. The angels would know. The last song would have been heard by most of them.

The laundry was at the back of the house, behind the kitchen. Turning on the tap, Gadreil looked down at the sword as he rinsed the blood from it, drawing it across the white cloth that hung from one side of the deep sink.

_There's always a price._

There always was. He was alone now. The one thing that he wanted, more than anything else, had taken everything else that he'd believed in and the things he'd thought he'd loved and it had discarded them.

He laid the sword on the counter and put his hands under the tap. At the bottom of the sink, the water was pink, swirling down the drain. Gadreil had the feeling that the slick feel of Avner's blood would never leave him. It was another part of the price, he thought distantly, rubbing at his palms and fingers.


	20. Chapter 20 No Goin' Home

**Chapter 20 No Goin' Home**

* * *

><p><em><strong>Somerset, Pennsylvania<strong>_

Dean looked at the black car as he hit the brakes of the Lincoln gently. Parked on the cross-street, it was an inky shadow against the screen of bushes that hid the house, and the sight brought an uncomfortable mix of emotion, relief and dread that they were here, they'd caught up and his brother was in that house, possessed by an angel.

"I'll stay here then," Crowley said from the rear, the chain between the cuffs padlocked to the base of the door's armrest.

"You do that," Dean agreed absently, getting out of the Lincoln and looking up and down the quiet street. He glanced at Cas as he got out and shut the door and started to walk.

"You go in through the back," he said to the angel as they turned onto the cross street. "Keep him thinking it's just me to worry about and you should be able to take him easy."

"Yes."

The Impala was covered in dust, and Dean ran his hand over her roof as he came alongside her, continuing lightly down the column to the quarter panel, reassuring himself that she was in one piece. He stopped beside her as Cas continued to the house, unsure of what he was looking for, exactly.

In his memories, the car had always been there. His father had taught him her sounds, her feel, the intricacies of her engine and where her limits lay. Looking at her, he thought that in some strange way, she'd taken over the role of mother, when he'd finally accepted that his mother had gone. She protected him and he looked after her, and the symbiosis of the relationship had kept him going when nothing else could.

He acknowledged his unease that she'd gotten here without him, that the dick who had his brother had driven her across the country. He wasn't sure what he felt about that, precisely. It wasn't having a calming effect on the anger that was churning just under his control.

Flinching a little as the porch light came on when he stepped up to the door, Dean reached for the door handle, turning it slowly. It was open, and the door swung soundlessly inward.

The hall held a staircase to one side and seemed to lead back through the house. An open door leading to a sitting room or living room was to his left. He stepped through it, gaze flicking once around the room before settling on the body on the floor near the furthest armchair. One arm was flung out, the other hidden under the body. Dean looked at the red stain that had soaked into the collar of the man's shirt, the pool to either side of the hole in the chest, and drew the angel sword from his coat, fingers flexing around it lightly as he heard the sound of running water, deeper in the house.

He'd made twenty-four angel-killing bullets so far, with a lot of difficulty and some reworking on the moulds required. He hadn't brought them. His job was to be the decoy, and with a gun loaded with that ammunition, he couldn't guarantee he wouldn't pull it and use it. It would be the end of the angel, but it would also be the end of Sam and he wasn't capable of going that far, not in cold blood.

At the far end of the kitchen, the open door led to the laundry and Dean moved soundlessly across the tiled floor, the point of the sword rising as he saw his brother's familiar back, hunched over the deep sink.

"You should not have come here, Dean," Gadreil said, turning off the tap and picking up the cloth to dry his hands.

"You killed my friend, then you take my brother, and you think I'm gonna let that stand?"

"I allowed you to live," Gadreil pointed out coolly.

Dean looked down at the sword he held, spinning it casually between his fingers. The pale light coming through the window from the streetlight glanced from the blade and he looked back at the angel.

"Mistake."

"Yours."

He led with his right, the sword sweeping in an arc toward the angel, as he looked behind Gadreil's left shoulder. For a split second, the angel turned his head slightly to sight what was behind him and the second sword dropped from Dean's sleeve into his hand as Gadreil turned back, his face tightening at the simple ruse. It was too late, Dean was already within reach, and the tip of the second sword scored through the thick denim of the angel's jeans leg, parting cloth and skin and penetrating slightly into the muscle.

Gadreil's face blanched, the pain fierce and light flooding out from the short gash. He staggered back, lifting both hands and Dean was plucked from the floor and thrown across the narrow room, twisting in mid-air as he got one arm in front of his face in time to hit the cupboard with that, instead of his head.

Looking down at the cut, Gadreil placed his hand carefully over it, closing his eyes and drawing power from the soul residing in the vessel. The cut began to close.

He didn't hear the angel behind him, turning at the last second to see Castiel standing next to him, his face expressionless, his hand raised. The touch was so much more powerful than he could have believed and darkness swallowed him without a murmur of protest, his vessel's nervous system shutting down and preventing any action at all, his brother's power smothering his ability to touch the soul he was so close to.

* * *

><p>Cas watched Sam's body hit the ground, senses still stretched out, through the vessel, through the room, through the building and the neighbourhood. And no one was stirring, he thought irrelevantly, not even a mouse.<p>

He crossed the floor to kneel beside Dean, looking at the jagged split leaking blood over the hunter's forehead. Along the same line as so many times before. He lifted his hand and touched it, face backlit by the soft, pure light that filled his palm. Not the power of Heaven, not now, just the power of the Grace he'd stolen, sealing bone, blood vessels, muscle and skin.

Dean blinked, looking up at the angel. "You get him?"

"Wrapped to go," Cas confirmed, getting to his feet and holding out his hand. Dean looked at it for a moment and rolled on to his side, getting to his knees and tucking one sword back into his jacket as he handed the other to Cas. The angel took it and Dean crossed the floor, kneeling beside Sam and feeling through his pockets. He tossed the car keys at the angel.

"Uh, Dean, these keys –"

Dean grinned up at him as he positioned himself behind Sam and lifted, twisting his brother over his shoulder and back and straightening up with a grunt to mark the effort.

"Not driving my car, Cas," he wheezed. "Just opening the doors."

"Uh, Dean, Sam will have to ride with me." Castiel said uncomfortably as he followed the hunter out of the room and down the hall.

"What?"

"I need to monitor the status of the angel at all times," he explained, hurrying past Dean and his over-sized burden as they came to the front door. "That will be impossible if we're in different cars."

Easing his way through the opened door, and onto the porch, Dean took each of the steps in the low stone flight down to the path slowly. The Lincoln would fit Sam in the back. He'd have to take Crowley with him.

"Alright, go get Crowley out of the back," he told Cas, stopping to adjust the weight over his shoulders. "I'll be there in a minute," he added, half under his breath.

He would tail, he decided as he walked slowly up the street past his car, feeling every degree of the rise under the weight of his brother. Cas could indicate trouble with the lights if he needed to. He couldn't think of another way to handle it. The four of them squeezed into the Impala wasn't going to work. Crowley already had too many advantages and while they had a deal, he wasn't going to bet Sam's life on it.

_You _are_ betting Sam's life on this_, the voice that refused to shut up and die said. _No one but him will pay for this if you're wrong … again._

Worst case, he told himself, he'd have to kill the angel and his brother, and Sam would be free of all of this. He'd be burning anyway.

_Good plan._

Better than no plan, he snarled internally, stopping again as Sam began to slip a little from his hold.

The voice didn't respond and he changed his grip, glancing up at the Lincoln, no more than thirty feet now. He didn't need the problems detailed. He knew this was a long shot.

"Sleeping Moose," Crowley said from beside the hood as Dean eased his brother to the ground beside the open rear door and into the back seat. "Nice job," the demon added to Cas.

"The Enochian binding sigils, over his chest and back and forehead," Cas said as he handed Dean a permanent marker and walked around the car to the other door. "Where we're going, will you have suitable restraints?" he asked Crowley across the car's roof.

"I got everything we need," Crowley assured him. "Everything and more."

When the sigils had been made, staining Sam's skin, Dean crawled backward out of the car and dropped the pen on the rear floor. He turned to Crowley.

"Where're we going?"

"Holtwood," Crowley said with a smile. "Three hours down the Seventy-Six."

"Alright, I'll tail. Any problems, hit the brakes and I'll be there."

Cas nodded and Dean reached out for the chain linking Crowley's wrists, yanking the demon back from the car as the angel started the engine and pulled out slowly.

"At that speed, it'll be more like six hours," Crowley remarked, looking at the rear end of the car lift and wobble and descend again. "Thing looks like an underage tart on her first pair of heels."

Dean's mouth compressed at the image, which was accurate if nothing else, and turned for the black car.

"Rules," he said, lengthening his stride and forcing the demon into a half-run to keep up. "No talking. No eating. No talking. No … you know what? No anything."

Crowley scuttled after him and stopped at the rear door of the car. "You must be sought after at parties."

"Those angel swords do quite a number on demons," Dean said casually, pulling his out and tossing it onto the passenger seat as he opened the driver's door.

Crowley said nothing, crouching to get into the rear seat of the Impala and pulling the door closed behind him.

Dean smiled faintly as he pulled his door closed and turned the key. The familiar rumble did something for the nervous tension that was threading its way up between his shoulder blades and into his neck. He flicked the lights on and pulled out, using a driveway to turn around and follow the Lincoln up to the interstate.

* * *

><p><em><strong>I-83 S, Pennsylvania<strong>_

"They still talk about you, you know," Crowley said from the back seat. "Down in the pit."

Dean's fingers closed hard around the wheel as he kept his gaze fixed to the road.

"You forget the rule, Crowley?"

"You think about it all the time," the demon said, shifting slightly along the seat to catch the hunter's eyes in the mirror.

Watching the Lincoln's taillights, Dean decided against responding to that.

"You know how many souls last even five years, Dean?" Crowley continued into the silence that had thickened. "Before they give up and shriek to be let off? Maybe one in a hundred thousand. That's just five years. In Hell time, of course. A mere couple of weeks up here."

He couldn't just pull over and stab the sonofabitch demon in the neck, although his hands were itching to the feel the cool grip of the sword.

"And Alastair put you on the fast track."

Dean's gaze cut to the mirror, flicking back to the road as he caught sight of Crowley's eyes.

"You didn't know that?" the demon asked, his expression as innocent as he could manage. "No, of course not, how could you?" He turned his head, looking at the darkness outside the car as they sped south. "He started you with the worst he could find. Told you all about them, didn't he? A righteous man, they said. Morally incorruptible."

The noise Dean made in his throat was something between a cough and a disgusted laugh and Crowley looked in the mirror, smiling slightly.

"Do you know what it means to be 'morally incorruptible', really?" he asked, one brow lifting. "Means that you don't take the easy way out whenever the choice comes up."

"Let's me out then," Dean said, grimacing inwardly at the slip of responding to the demon.

_Demons lie._

"Not at all," Crowley contradicted him cheerfully. "The only reason Alastair even got through to you was because he didn't tell you the consequences of getting off. And the angels were suspiciously absent at the opportune moment."

"What opportune moment?"

The corner of Crowley's mouth lifted on one side. "Heaven knew where you were from the moment you were dragged down. Did you doubt it?"

_When we discovered Lilith's plan for you, we laid siege to hell and we fought our way to get to you before you—_

"Jump-started the Apocalypse," Dean whispered to himself. He'd known that Uriel and Raphael had been working behind the scenes to ensure Lucifer's escape. Had they manipulated Hell or had they been cooperating with the demon queen?

"Did Lilith make a deal with Uriel?"

"Uriel worked for Raphael," Crowley said, inspecting his nails. "And Raphael made the deal with Lilith. Gave her the locations of the seals. Told her where you boys were a few times."

_And we were too late._

Played. Again. He wondered if Cas had known the truth of it, back then, or if the angel had found out in the last couple of years.

The sign for PA-124 flickered past him and he flashed his lights at the angel, hitting the blinker for the next exit and watching the Lincoln stutter and jerk onto the off-ramp.

"Why're you telling me this, Crowley?" he asked warily, tapping the brake as Cas turned right.

"Because it's not over," the demon told him, leaning forward as much as the chains would allow.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You're not as broken as you think."

_You are clean._

Dean jerked back slightly against the seat as that not-voice boomed in his mind. His gaze went to the mirror instantly but Crowley seemed not to have noticed – either the voice or his reaction to it.

"Weren't you the one telling me that people don't have much of a life-span around me?" he asked, aiming for sarcasm, but hearing something else instead.

"People? Yeah," Crowley agreed, leaning back. "Anything that needs to be hunted down and killed … that's another story. Zero life-span. You're good at what you do."

The turn to Holtwood was just ahead and the demon looked around. "Take the next right before the river," he told Dean.

Dean overtook the Lincoln and made the turn, watching the mirror for the angel as the pale gold car followed him.

Another abandoned industrial complex, Dean thought, driving through the empty, derelict buildings and parking in the deep shadows next to the loading docks, directed by the demon.

"How many of these you got?" he asked curiously as they got out of the car.

"Just enough," Crowley said, lifting his hands and gesturing to the postern door to one side of the dock's large entrance.

It was still locked but yielded as Dean finessed the picks through the barrel. The interior was a silent, stygian hole, and he passed his flashlight to the demon, turning away to get his brother out of the Lincoln.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Louisville, Kentucky<strong>_

Cecily looked into the narrowed cat-green eyes and swallowed discreetly. Up until now, she'd only heard about the archdemon. It was, she thought, easy to play down the menace of a creature who'd once been an angel and was now a demon when you'd never met them face to face.

"And Crowley was here."

Cecily nodded, wondering exactly how much information to divulge about that visit. "Yeah, I thought you would want to know," she said, feeling her palms break into a sweat.

"You thought right," Abaddon said absently, looking around the office. "What is this place?"

"NSA. We intercept communications here." The demon looked down at her hands, twisting together involuntarily in her lap.

"Crowley put you here?"

Cecily nodded again. "He … um … believes in getting as much intel as possible."

The archdemon laughed softly. "Entrails and blood spells not good enough for him?"

"Uh, no, I don't think that's the –"

"I'm kidding, my dear," Abaddon said, turning to face her. "Where is he now?"

"He was following a car," Cecily said quickly. "We found it in Somerset, Pennsylvania."

"You found it?"

The demon gestured vaguely at the screens on her desk. "I have access to every camera across the country from here," she explained, a little breathlessly. "Also to local, state and federal law enforcement –"

"You found it for Crowley?" Abaddon clarified, leaning over the desk.

"Uh –" Cecily tried to think of how to explain that decision. "He – uh – um –"

"Old habits die hard, perhaps?"

"Yeah," the demon agreed immediately, aware that perspiration was dripping down her neck. "He was travelling with a man, and an angel."

"Was he?"

"He was being held prisoner by them, actually," Cecily divulged helplessly, any thought of playing the woman in front of him gone. "Dean Winchester and Castiel."

"How interesting." Abaddon straightened up from the desk, turning away. "When was that?"

"Yesterday morning."

"So, are they still in Somerset?"

"Uh, I don't – I can check," Cecily caught herself in time and swung around, her fingers flying over the keys. She pulled four photographs from the security cameras on the ramps to the interstate and a police report from the local cops. "Um, the car left early this morning. Cops found a dead body in a house there at noon."

"So, they're gone. Can you find this car again?"

"Of course," the demon said, widening the search against the Impala's tags and description. "Next stop was Carlisle. Heading east … they went through the toll barriers on the One-Twenty-Four, heading for the river." Her eyes closed briefly as she realised she was out of information. No, she thought, not quite.

"Um," she said, turning back to the archdemon. "Crowley has a building in Holtwood, acquired it a few years ago?"

"Does he?" Abaddon looked at her and the demon nodded quickly.

"He used it as a base when he was looking for a way into Purgatory," she confirmed. If Abaddon didn't succeed and Crowley regained the throne, she'd be flayed for telling, she knew, but the fact was she could only handle one tyrannical despot at a time.

Abaddon looked down at the desk and sat on the corner. "I can see why Crowley thinks you're of use here, Cecily."

The demon looked up into the striking features above her, feeling her meatsuit's heart-rate accelerate to big, booming thuds against her ribcage.

"Old habits are hard to get rid of," Abaddon said softly, leaning on one arm, close to the demon's face. "But it is possible if you really want to."

"Yes, I – I –"

"No more conversations with Crowley, Cecily, do you understand me?"

"Yessir, I mean, ma'am," she babbled.

"Good," the archdemon slid off the corner and walked away from the desk. "Oh," she added, stopping and looking over her shoulder. "You should remember, dear, that someone is always watching."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Holtwood, Pennsylvania<strong>_

Dean looked around the room expressionlessly. Against the exterior wall, a narrow set of steel stairs led down from the outside. On the main interior wall, an archway led to the maze of corridors that they'd come in through, from the loading dock. Two chairs were bolted to the floor, one in the centre of the room, the other to one side. A free-standing cupboard stood with its doors open, a range of tools and more delicate equipment filling its interior.

The room was surprisingly reminiscent of the torture chamber in Geneva, he thought, the memory of the angel strapped and bound in the chair in that place making his stomach turn over slowly. Alfie had been another casualty, another death in a long line.

Now it was his brother who was bound, unable to move an inch in the chair in the centre, arms and wrists and ankles held to the chair's frame with engraved loops of metal, head strapped back to the back of the chair, immobilising him completely.

Opposite Sam, Crowley sat in a plain wooden chair and beside him, Castiel was watching the angel with a pitiless glare. He turned as the chair shook, Cas' gaze meeting his for a second and returning to the angel held in front of him as its eyes opened and it fought briefly against the restraints.

"Welcome to the party, pal," Dean said, walking around the back of the chair and past to Castiel. "Cas? How we looking?"

"Most of Sam's internal burns have healed," Cas said, his gaze slightly unfocussed as he looked within Sam's body. "I should be able to fix the rest."

He lifted his gaze to Sam's face. "What's your name?"

The angel stared back at him.

"I thought I knew every angel in Heaven, but I've never seen you," Cas said, half to himself.

"Why would I tell you anything?" the angel said, his face pinched and eyes narrowed.

Dean stepped closer to him. "Well, I don't give a damn who you are. You need to get out, now!"

The angel's gaze slid sideways to him. "And if I don't?"

"Then you and I –" Crowley said, slowly and clearly from his chair. "– will have a lovely little playdate."

The angel looked down at the demon. "Even bound, I can rip this body apart. Tell them, Castiel."

"You do, you die," Dean warned him, feeling his stomach clench.

The angel's gaze met his unflinchingly. Dean felt a sharp throb of fear at the resolution in Sam's eyes.

"You want this to end?" The angel straightened slightly in the chair, closing his eyes. "Go ahead. Put a blade through your brother's heart."

_Get a fucking grip_, Dean told himself, shunting that all-too vivid image aside. The ultimatum approach had been the longest of long shots anyway and it wasn't why they were here.

The angel released his breath in a soft exhale. "If it makes you feel better, I have Sam locked away in a dream. As far as he knows, the two of you are working a case right now, something with ghouls … and … cheerleaders."

Turning away, Dean scowled. "Why are you doing this, huh?"

He turned back as the angel remained silent. "We fought together, and I trusted you! I thought you were one of the good guys!"

The angel's gaze dropped briefly and Dean stared at him, wondering if that was a chink in the otherwise impervious armour. In his memory of the hospital room, the angel had seemed sincere in his desire to protect Sam, to save him. He couldn't make the edges meet.

"I am doing what I have to do."

The angel's features had hardened again, that glimpse of regret or whatever the hell it'd been, gone.

"Yeah, well, so am I," he told the angel softly.

Turning, he walked away, his gaze flicking to the demon then dropping to the floor as he passed Cas.

Crowley rose from the chair, chains clanking. He took a stride to the metal cart that sat beside the angel's chair, and picked up a long, slender metal rod. Stepping closer to the chair, he inserted the rod in through the skin of Sam's temple, finding the precise location through the skull.

"So am I," he murmured, pushing the probe in deeply.

The angel's face elongated as the vessel registered pain, not localised to the entry but spreading in hot, towering waves throughout the body. Sam's mouth opened wide, a gasping moan emerging from him as the demon inserted the rod to almost its full length.

Behind Crowley, Castiel turned his head away from the sight, his gaze fixed on the wall opposite. Dean watched the demon for several moments, his face stony, then looked at his watch.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Four hours later<strong>_

_I was awake for some of it, Dean. I watched myself kill Wandell with my own two hands; I saw the light go out in his eyes. _

Dean's hands curled into fists at the memory of his brother telling him that. _That'd been Meg_, he told himself. _She would've been drinking his pain, letting him see all that stuff_. The angel in his brother now wouldn't let Sam out of the dream, not now. Not and risk being booted out. Sam wasn't feeling this. He _wasn't_ feeling it.

The scream rose to a high pitch, bouncing from the brick and concrete walls and floor and Dean forced his gaze to remain on the floor, forced himself to stay where he was, arms held rigidly crossed over his chest as if he could keep it all inside that way.

Echoing down through the arched doorway, and into the machinery-strewn corridor beyond, the next scream faded to a series of gasping groans, overflowing with an agony he was all too familiar with. He couldn't …

* * *

><p>Cas caught the movement, turning to see Dean push himself off the cabinet, strides lengthening, the man's gaze fixed on the arch and the corridor and the rooms beyond.<p>

He glanced at the demon, and turned to follow his friend.

"Hey."

Dean stood at the far end of the room, shoulders hunched under his jacket. "I can't watch that any more," he said, his voice low and tight, head bowed.

"I understand," Cas said quietly. "It's not Sam. But … it's still Sam."

Shifting from foot to foot, Dean dragged in a deep breath, expelling it with the same determination as he tried to keep the contents of his stomach down. His gaze flicked to the angel for a moment and he nodded, sucking down another, deeper, breath.

"Pretty much, yeah," he agreed tersely. Another long groan came from the other room and he looked up at Cas, his voice higher as he asked, "How're you doin'?"

"You want to talk about me? Now?" Cas looked at him in confusion.

Dean turned from the angel at the sound of another drawn out cry, his face screwing up as he said, "I wanna talk about anything that's not a demon sticking needles into my brother's brain!"

Cas watched as he stopped a few feet away, one hand lifting to wipe over his face. He'd seen the hunter terrified, furious, sunk into despair and prepared to sell his life for the chance to get through to his brother. He'd never seen the combination of doubt and high-strung fear that clung to the man now.

"So … yeah, humour me, how're you doing?" Dean said again, clearing his throat.

"Ah, I'm okay," Cas said uncertainly.

"Good." For a moment he stared at the ventilation fan, turning slowly above him, then he turned around, forcing his fear away, focussing on the angel. "Good. That's, uh … so what? You just change the batteries out, power back up? It's that easy?"

"It wasn't easy," Cas corrected him. "But I didn't have a choice."

"Yeah." Dean said, looking at the floor. "That's how it usually goes."

He walked back to the angel, stopping in front of him. He could get this out, at least, he thought, the shooting tension rising from his shoulders up to his skull helping to damp out the sounds that were still coming from the other room. "Cas, I'm sorry."

"About what?"

"Kicking you out of the bunker," Dean said, shaking his head a little as other things occurred to him. "Um, not telling you about Sam …"

"You thought his life was at stake," Cas offered.

Dean's expression smoothed out to a prosaic resignation as he met the angel's gaze. "Yeah. I got played."

"No." Cas frowned. "At the time, Sam's life was at stake, Dean," he said slowly. "And at the time that angel, whoever he is, did begin to heal him."

Ducking his head, Dean's mouth twisted up. "I still got played, Cas. I believed – I _trusted_ – with no reason but needing it so bad."

Castiel sighed, his breath gusting out. "Dean, I believed I could save Heaven. And that wasn't from needing to save my brothers, my family. That was from pride, the delusional idea that I could, single-handedly, undo what I had done." He shook his head. "It wasn't that I trusted Metatron," he admitted slowly. "It was that I allowed him to use me, let myself believe that he was right and I was the warrior – the _only_ warrior – of God who could do the job."

Dean looked at him for a long moment. In the angel's face, in his eyes, were the shadows and holes of too many mistaken choices, over too long a time. It wasn't the time or the place, not for this, he thought.

"You wanna get into a pissing contest over _guilt_?" he asked, his tone as light as he could make it. "With_ me?_"

Cas looked at him, eyes widening as he heard the forced casualness in the man's voice. For a moment, he wasn't sure what to say. Then he saw, behind the faintly derisive smile, understanding. And a promise, of sorts, he thought. One day, Dean would listen to this, with all his attention and all the depths of understanding that even the hunter didn't truly realise he had in himself. That day couldn't be today.

He nodded and they both turned as Crowley's voice echoed up the wide space.

"Laverne! Shirley! Get in here!"

The demon stood beside Sam and he unbuckled the head restraint, Sam's head falling to his shoulder.

"Pinhead's out cold," Crowley said, turning to look at them. "But watch this."

Four of the long metal rods protruded from Sam's skull, one inserted into the left temple, two in the right and one in the centre of the brain, between the frontal lobes. Crowley lifted a hand and gently moved one of the two in the right temple.

Dean flinched as Sam dragged in a breath and spoke. "Zir noco iad Gadreil. Zir noco iad Gadreil."

"Wha-what's he saying?" he asked, seeing Castiel stiffen slightly beside him.

"His name," the angel said tightly. "Gadreil."

"That mean somethin' to you?"

"Well," Cas said. "That's why I've never seen him. He's been imprisoned since the dawn of Time."

Dean flicked a glance between Gadreil and Castiel, one brow lifting.

"Gadreil was the guardian who allowed Lucifer into the Garden."

"My, my," Crowley said, looking at the angel in front of him. "A celebrity."

Dean frowned. "Wait a – the garden … like Eden? Adam and Eve? Fig-leaves Garden?"

Cas nodded, his gaze fixed on Sam. "It's his fault. All of it. The corruption of Man, demons, Hell … God left because of him." His eyes closed tightly for a moment and he inhaled sharply. "The archangels, the Apocalypse. If he hadn't been so weak, none of it would've happened!"

"Cas –" Dean looked at his friend's hands, balled into fists.

Cas stepped forward, hands flashing out to take the lapels of Sam's jacket, shaking the limp body furiously. "You brought ruin to everything, you damned son of a bitch!"

"Cas!" Dean grabbed the angel's arms, forgetting for a moment how strong the angel was, even without the power of Heaven behind him. "Cas! Hey!"

Cas let go of Gadreil and swung around to face him. "He –"

"I get it!" Dean cut him off. "I do, but you gotta chill."

For a moment, he thought Cas would brush him aside like a bug. Then the angel knocked his hand away and Dean took a step back, watching warily as Cas turned away, regaining control.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Three hours later.<strong>_

"What's taking so long, Crowley?"

"I'm trying to unravel a living, multi-dimensional knot of pure energy, Dean. I believe I did say 'art more than science'?" Crowley told him in a patient, even tone, tweaking again the rod in the temple.

Sam gasped, opening his eyes and Dean took a step closer.

"It won't work," Gadreil said coolly. "You will never find your brother. Go ahead. Poke and prod. I can sit in this chair for years and watch you fail over and over again. I've endured much worse than this, Dean. So – _much_ – worse. And I have all the time in the world to–"

"Shut up!" Dean snapped, staring at the floor. "Alright, Plan 'B'. Cas, you gotta possess him."

"What?"

"Do it now!" Dean snarled at him. "Get in there, tell Sam what's going on and help him kick that lying sonofabitch out!"

Castiel looked at him doubtfully. "It might work, but I cannot inhabit a vessel without permission."

Crowley cleared his throat and looked at Dean.

"No," Dean growled, looking at the demon. "Not happening!"

Sighing, Crowley said, "Don't be daft. I can get in there. Sam's got enough doubts about himself that will be his consent – for me. I can burrow into that rat's nest of hair and wake Sam up. Just call me Plan 'C'."

Cas saw Dean's expression shift and took a half-step toward him. "You can't be–"

"You gotta better idea?" Dean demanded, cutting Cas off. He looked back to Crowley when Cas didn't respond. "What about the angel?"

"I'll work fast," Crowley promised.

"And if he finds you?" Dean asked, forcing the question past the certainty he already had of what would happen to Sam if Gadreil found Crowley before Sam was aware of what was happening. It would be nothing to the angel to annihilate his brother's soul and body. Nothing at all.

"I'll run!" Crowley countered sharply. "I'm not dying for you lot," he added. "'Course, if I do this, you're gonna have to –"

"Take off the leash," Dean cut him off, his voice barely a whisper as he struggled with the risks he was taking, the danger he was putting his brother into. "Yeah. I know."

"And it stays off!" Crowley pressed. "I save Sam and I leave here a free man. Do we have a deal?"

Another fucking deal? Dean could hear his brother's outrage easily. No more deals. No more hurting anyone else. He couldn't leave this. It wasn't within his capabilities to just walk away, not if there was the slightest chance. _We'll figure it out, Sam_, he told himself, fists clenched and teeth set to hide the involuntary shudders that were rippling through him. He couldn't look at Crowley. Couldn't look at the angel watching him through Sam's eyes. Couldn't look at Cas.

"Cas, burn off Sam's tattoo."

"Dean –" the angel protested and Dean shook his head.

"Do it," he said, his gaze fixed on the floor as he nodded. "Do it."

He listened to the angel walk across the floor, heard Gadreil's sharp inhalation and the rustle of Sam's clothing as Cas pulled it aside.

_I can see it in your eyes, Dean. You're worthless. You couldn't save your Dad, and deep down ... you know that you can't save your brother. They'd have been better off without you. _

He closed his eyes, burying the memory of his brother's voice, the demon's taunt that had cut him to the bone.

_No matter what I did, you wouldn't shoot._ Sam, himself, not understanding. He'd wondered then if his brother would ever understand.

_Sam, when Dad told me ... that I might have to kill you, it was only if I couldn't save you. Now, if it's the last thing I do I'm gonna save you_. God, had he ever been that young and-and hopelessly naïve.

_Stop bossing me around, Dean! Look. My whole life, you take the wheel, you call the shots, and I trust you because you are my brother. Now I'm asking you, for once, trust me._

But he _couldn't_. Couldn't trust his little brother to fight the way he would. Couldn't trust Sam to want his family, the way he did, it had been the most important thing to him his whole life and he knew, he _knew_ that for Sam, it was not.

Light flared in the room as the angel's palm touched Sam's chest and the tattoo, inked deep into the skin, vanished.

Dean looked at Crowley as Cas walked away, and the anger he'd been holding down came boiling to the surface. "If you mess – with Sam, if you try anything –!"

"I keep my bargains," Crowley said softly, looking back at him.

It was the only reason he was going with this, Dean knew. The only reason he'd allowed the demon out of the bunker in the first place. In some insanely twisted way, he trusted Crowley because his word was good.

The demon looked at Gadreil disparagingly for a moment and back to Dean as he lifted the chain attached to the collar around his neck. "Besides, I don't want to be inside your brother any longer than I have to. I'm not one for sloppy seconds."

Dean waited until Crowley had dropped back into the wooden chair. He walked to him and unlocked the metal collar, peeling the two halves free of the demon and letting it fall to the floor.

"When you find him, say 'Poughkeepsie'," he told Crowley. "It's our go word. Means 'drop everything and run'."

"Fine," Crowley said, staring at the angel opposite. "While I'm gone," he added, looking from Dean to Cas. "Hands off the suit."

"I will destroy you," Gadreil promised, staring down at him.

"Eat me," Crowley suggested, opening his mouth wide.

A thick column of dark red smoke poured from his mouth, curling and twisting across the gap between them, arrowing into the angel's mouth as he reached out and found, deep within the insecurities of Sam's subconscious, the consent that he needed.

No demon could break into a vessel without it, any more than an angel could. Angel consent had to be given consciously, freely and willingly and without doubt. But a demon could find consent in the terrors of a victim, in alcohol abuse or the persistence of a desire to be someone else, in self-doubt and shaken self-esteem, in the loss of care, and of attention, to self, to body and mind and soul.

Watching the angel arch back, every muscle rigid in Sam's body, Dean felt his chest tighten. Both Crowley and Sam slumped forward a moment later, neither moving.

"A demon and an angel walk into my brother …" Dean said, walking around the two chairs restlessly. "Sounds like a bad joke."

Cas looked at him, his gaze touching on the pulse, beating clearly in the hollow of the man's throat. "Dean … if this doesn't work …"

The hunter stopped, staring sightlessly at the wall as he took the unfinished sentence, absorbed it and buried it. "It'll work," he told Cas.

It had to work. There was nothing else.

He turned to the angel, brows drawn together. "How is it that I could kill the Whore, Cas, kill her with a hunk of wood, God's servant … but I can't help my own brother? Is that God's great plan for me? Saving people I don't care about and letting the ones I do die?"

The angel looked at him without answering.

* * *

><p>Sam skimmed over another page, running a hand in frustration through his hair as he stared at the unhelpful text.<p>

The library was quiet, warmly lit by the lamps that were scattered on the reading tables, on the side-tables by the club chairs and on the side-board. The rustling of the fine parchment was the only sound he could hear, and he threw a slightly troubled glance at the other table, expecting to see … something there, although he couldn't imagine what. At the other end of the table, Dean's auto and several other handguns lay cleaned and ready to be packed away.

"It just doesn't make any sense," he called out to his brother, completely sure that Dean was somewhere within ear-shot. "Why is this ghoul only chomping on … cheerleaders?"

"Hey, you wanna beer?" Dean's voice responded, from somewhere out of sight.

"No, I'm fine," Sam muttered to himself, looking from the book in front of him to one on the pile beside him. There had to be a reason for it. Somewhere here.

_Only six levels of books in this place_, he told himself, an attempt at lightening his mood. _Won't take you more than a couple of hundred years to look through them all._

"Not bad."

Sam's head snapped around to see Crowley standing by the end of the table and looking around the room with a reluctant admiration.

"Dean!" Sam erupted out of his chair, backing to the hall. "DEAN!"

"Poughkeepsie," Crowley said softly, staring at him.

For a split second, Sam thought the demon was telling him that's where his brother was, then Crowley raised his brows expectantly and Sam looked at him carefully.

"How do you know that word?"

"Because Dean's sent me, Bullwinkle," Crowley said clearly. "The real Dean."

Sam didn't move. Crowley let out a melodramatic sigh.

"Look, I'll make this quick – you've been possessed by an angel, see? An' he's got you packed away in some dusty corner of your own mind. I'm here to break you out," the demon rushed through the explanation, making let's-move-along gestures with his arms toward the stairs.

"Seriously?"

Crowley rolled his eyes, his gaze caught by the guns lying at the end of the table. "Fine," he said, picking up the ivory-handled Colt automatic. "We'll do this the fun way."

He cocked the gun, aimed and fired and Sam jerked backwards as a hole appeared in his shirt. There was no accompanying impact, no spreading cold numbness, no fiery pain following that.

Crowley watched him pat himself and shrugged. "See? Not real, like I said. I know how possession works, Sam. You've seen everything he's seen, even if you can't remember, so what I need to you to do – I need you to remember!"

_Remember._

Sam felt a shiver run up along his spine as an image hit him, a dark-haired man, lying on the floor; looking down to see blood covering his hands. Then Kevin. Eyes burning as white light filled him up. His brother's face, battered and bruised, staring at him, eyes filled with regret. A demon's face, laughing over him. A hospital room.

_Around him, machines beeped softly and the hiss of a respirator filled the silence in between. The gown was scratchy, the coverlet heavy over his legs. A crash outside the room and Dean's face swam into his view, tense and bloodied, green eyes alight._

The images sharpened, the memories tumbling into order, attached to events, to Time.

"Did I kill Kevin?" he whispered as that image remained, burned in against his mind's eye.

"No," Crowley said firmly. "_You_ didn't. _He_ did."

Sam swallowed against the feeling, under the skin of his palms, a dry itching heat.

"You need to take control, Sam," Crowley continued, leaning closer to him and raising his voice as he warmed to the topic. "Blow it _up_! Cast that punk-ass holy roller _OUT_!"

Squeezing his eyes tightly shut, Sam forced the image away, straightening and turning to look at Crowley, and then beyond him at a figure standing there.

"What?" Crowley looked at his eyeline. "Oh. Bollocks."

Angel, Sam thought, looking at the harmonious construct of the being standing behind the demon. No vessel to constrain the broken and burned wings that were tucked untidily behind the broad shoulders. Long, dark-red hair hung to his waist, framing a face that was too perfect in its symmetry, winged brows and dark-blue eyes and full-lipped mouth drawn now in a mixture of compassion and regret and … shame, Sam thought.

"Hello, Sam."

"Who are you?"

"His name is Gadreil," Crowley interjected, staring at the construct. "He's the first in the long line of which that right chump, David Hannum, said are born every minute."

"I trusted my brother." Gadreil turned to look down at the demon. "That was my crime and my foolishness."

Sam blinked at the angel as it stared at Crowley.

"And I will be the one to lead my people back into Heaven," Gadreil promised softly. "My name cleared. I will be a hero. But you, demon, you will always be a coward, tormented and never at peace, so who's the sucker?"

Crowley lifted his chin, eyes narrowing.

The angel sneered at him. "You should be running."

Sam winced as the demon turned away and swung back, the haymaker smacking against the angel's jaw but not moving him. The return, fast as a snake strike, sent Crowley across the library, and the demon hit the floor with a crack and a deep grunt.

Gadreil strode after him, catching Crowley's ribs with the first swinging kick as the demon clambered onto his hands and knees, snapping his arm with the second. Sam shook himself free of the tendrils of memories and launched himself at the angel, grappling with its shoulders and dragging it away from Crowley when another strike flipped the demon onto his back.

How was it he always forgot how goddamned powerful the dicks were until he was one-on-one with one again, he wondered briefly, ducking his head when Gadreil lifted and threw him across the library table and he slid over the polished surface to land on his back behind it, wind gone and head ringing. It was his mind, he told himself furiously, rolling onto his shoulder as Gadreil stalked toward him.

"Give up, boy! You're not strong enough!"

_My mind_, Sam reminded himself, drawing up a long leg and pistoning it into the angel's face the second he was close enough. Gadreil arched backward, arms pinwheeling as he hit the table and broke it in two.

"Take – control, Sam," Crowley wheezed from the other side of the room. "Cast him out!"

"Get out of my–" Sam ground out and the angel dropped on him, hands closing around his throat, pressing then squeezing, cutting off blood and air as Sam felt the cartilage of his windpipe begin to creak.

"You sure you want me to go?" Gadreil asked, leaning more weight over the man's neck. "Maybe I'm the only thing holding you together? I leave … you might die."

_My mind._

Sam opened his eyes, rolling them to the side. The lamp base from the table lay a few feet away.

_My _mind_._

He reached out and felt his fingers close tightly around it, bringing it up and over and smashing it against the angel's head.

Lamp base one, angel zero, he thought as Gadreil released him, falling to the side. He was on his feet, finding his balance and shoving one boot against the angel's neck as he looked down.

"I said," he grated, chest still heaving from exertion and adrenalin. "Get – the hell – out!"

* * *

><p>Dean swung around and threw up his arm over his face as Sam's body arched tightly against the restraints, mouth flying open and a torrent of argentine light rushing out of him, past the man, the demon and the angel, blazing in a circular cloud before it arrowed up through the ventilation shaft at the end of the corridor.<p>

He did it, he thought dazedly, taking a step closer to his brother and stopping as a second thick presence burst out of Sam's mouth, the wine-dark smoke writhing and ribboning back into the unconscious New York literary agent sitting opposite Sam.

"Sam!" Dean reached out for Sam's shoulder, turning to look at the angel beside him. "Cas!?"

Crowley dragged in a deep breath, eyes rolling back a little. "I'm fine, thanks for asking," he snapped irritably.

Removing the metal rods from Sam's skull as gently as possible, Cas looked down into the younger Winchester's face. "Sam, are you alright?"

"Cas?" Sam opened his eyes a fraction and peered up at him blearily. "That you?"

"The hell?" Dean looked up as a splash of light filled the room, flickering over the ceiling and walls and disappeared.

"I'll check," Cas said, dropping the rods back onto the tray and heading for the stairs.

"Can you walk?" Dean asked his brother, undoing the shackles that held him to the arms, dropping to one knee to free his brother's ankles.

"Walk?" Sam repeated, rubbing his wrists. "Yeah, if I can get my eyes to work. Dean –"

"It's Abaddon," Cas called down from the top of the stairs.

Crowley stood, looking at Sam briefly then turning to Dean. "Go. Out the back. I'll handle this."

Dean felt his brows shoot up. "Oh, 'cause you're such a good guy?" he asked disparagingly, unable to believe the demon would put his neck on the line.

"Right now, I'm the 'goodest' guy you got, Winchester," Crowley countered calmly, leaning down to pick up the canvas gear bag from the floor. He handed it to Dean as Cas raced down the stairs and got Sam's arm over his shoulder, helping him to walk out.

Dean looked hard at the demon, his expression perplexed. "This don't make us square," he warned Crowley. "I see you again –"

Crowley sighed. "I'm dead, yes, I know," he cut the hunter off with a weary shrug. "I love you too."

Dean swung the bag over his shoulder, and turned away, running across the room to catch up with Sam and Cas, ducking under his brother's right arm as they turned the corner.

"Pleasure doing business with you boys, as always," Crowley called out. He looked at the chair Sam had recently vacated and walked to it, sitting down and tilting his head from side to side, the bones cracking.

The outside door opened at the top of the stairs, hinges squealing as it was pushed wider and he looked up. Abaddon strolled in and stopped, leaning against the coated iron railing and looking down, the two demons behind her walking halfway down the stairs.

"Hello, darling."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Utica, New York<strong>_

Metatron glanced again at the clock on the wall of the bar. Ten minutes to closing and there was no word or sign from Gadreil. He stared back at his drink morosely as the bartender walked slowly down the bar.

"Waiting for someone?"

The scribe looked at the man sourly and his gaze twitched back to the clock. "I am. And he's late."

The first wave was in the lowest registers, well out of the bartender's ability to perceive and Metatron swallowed a mouthful of his marguerita, waiting for the next. It was higher, oscillating in the earth under the building, rising to match the harmonious wavelengths of the molecules of the bricks and mortar, the concrete footings and steel reinforcement, the building shaking in sympathy.

The scribe sighed as the man in front of him looked wildly around, hands stretched out to keep his balance. The highest frequency was reached as the angel closed in, and through the mirror behind the bar, Metatron saw light fill the windows of the bar, flooding in and banishing the shadows as the bottles and the panes and the glasses around the room shattered, one after another.

Behind the bar's counter, the bartender threw his head back, eyes rolling in their sockets. "Yes," he breathed and the sound stopped, the light cohering and filling the vessel, arteries and bones and organs glowing beneath the translucent skin for seconds, then vanishing.

Looking at him, Metatron brushed the broken glass fastidiously from in front of him, his expression sourly amused. "Let me guess," he said. "Winchester trouble."

The bartender stiffened and Gadreil stared back at Metatron coldly.

Shrugging, Metatron gestured at the fridge behind the angel. "I did mention that it's best to take the initiative when opportunity presents itself," he remarked mildly.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Holtwood, Pennsylvania<strong>_

"Crowley," Abaddon said, lingering over the word, drawing it out with a lascivious delight.

He lifted a brow as he schooled his expression into polite enquiry.

"Bring me his head," she ordered the demons standing several steps below her.

They both took another step down and stopped and Crowley hid a smile as he watched her turn to look at them, her face tightening.

"See, that's the thing about demons," he said conversationally. "They're only obedient up to a point. And I have been rewarding those with initiative and that so-hard-to-find take-charge mentality."

He looked at her as she walked down the stairs. "Right. Let's 'ave a chat."

"I'm not here to talk," Abaddon said disinterestedly.

"An' I'm not talking to you," he rebuked, quite gently, looking at the demons. "I'm talking to them, the average demon, because I feel their pain." He ignored the moue of disgust the archdemon made as she stared at him.

"It must have been difficult, with your loving King so cruelly taken from you," he continued, watching the two demons. "I imagine you felt … all at sea. And then came … the brute," he added, glancing at the red-haired woman. "She's strong. And a Knight. And immortal … at the moment."

He saw her twitch at the last words, and smiled inwardly. No one was better than he was at this, he thought, feeling his confidence grow.

"So I'm not surprised that some of my more idiotic subjects bought her line. But now? Good news, fellas," he said to them, getting up from the chair and spreading his arms expansively. "Daddy's home."

"Hell doesn't want you, Crowley," Abaddon said coolly. "It's mine."

"Is it? Not what I hear. Not while I'm still kicking."

"Well, then," she said, moving around him a couple of steps. "That settles it. You and me, right here. Winner takes the crown." She lifted a brow at him. "Or the sword."

Bollocks, he thought, matching her smile. "See, darlin', that's your problem. You think this is a fight."

"It's not?" she asked, glancing back at the demons on the stairs. "You're going to talk to me to death?"

He laughed. "It's a campaign, luv. Hearts and minds, that's what's important. The demons have a choice – take orders from the world's angriest ginger, an' that's sayin' something – or join my team, where everyone gets a say, a virgin and all the entrails they can eat."

"A ballot?" she asked, disbelief riddling her voice as she stared at him. "That's what you're proposing? Democracy – in Hell?"

"There you go, you're getting' it," he said encouragingly.

"You're serious."

"As a heart attack," he agreed, looking past her to the demons. "So, think on this, lads. Spread the word – Vote One, for Crowley."

He had just enough time to give her a small smirk as he snapped his fingers and disappeared.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Wrightsville, Pennsylvania<strong>_

The riverside docks were empty and Dean slowed down, the car bumping gently over the embedded railway lines as he pulled out of view of the road and stopped close to the skeletal and silent derricks. Rain pattered steadily on the roof and the wipers moved hypnotically across the windshield.

Behind him, Castiel pulled the Lincoln over, parking to one side of the black car and getting out.

Dean turned off the engine, staring at the wheel as he heard his brother shift in the passenger seat next to him.

"Cas needs to get you back to working order," he said softly, risking a glance at Sam.

Sam nodded and pushed the door open, easing his long frame out of the car.

D-day finally here, Dean thought, pulling the keys from the ignition and reaching for the door handle. He got out, and closed the door, leaning against the reassuring smooth panel of the Impala for a moment as his heart seemed to stutter against his ribs. Thunder muttered, not too far away and the rain seemed to get heavier.

Whatever happened, whatever Sam said, he'd already made up his mind, on the drive out of Holtwood and upriver. Crowley had been right.

He leaned on the covered wharf rail, watching nervously as Cas lifted his hand and healed Sam, the holes in his brother's face closing and sealing and vanishing under the soft white light that spread from the angel's palm. He watched as Sam's eyes opened, saw his brother straighten against the opposite rail, his focus turned inward, checking for stiffness, for soreness. He walked forward when he saw Sam open his eyes again.

"You feel better?" Cas asked Sam.

"A little, yeah."

"It will take time to heal you fully. We'll have to do it in stages," the angel warned. Sam nodded, his gaze turning to look at his older brother as Dean walked slowly toward him. Cas turned away and headed further up the wharf, pulling the collar of his trench coat around his ears as he looked into the darkness on both sides of the waterway.

"All right, let me hear it," Dean said, shoulders hunched under his coat.

Sam made a face. "What do you want me to say?" he asked tiredly. "I'm pissed?"

Acknowledging the sentiment with a shrug, Dean waited.

"Okay, I am," Sam said, looking down. "I'm pissed." He looked back at his brother. "You lied to me. Again."

"I didn't have a choice," Dean said, his voice low.

Sam shook his head. "No. Not this time, you can't play that card, Dean. I would've died before consenting to an angel possessing me, no matter what the reason. And you knew it."

"I know," Dean admitted immediately. "And I wouldn't let you. Because that's – letting you go without trying – that's not in me."

Sam stared at him, bewildered. "So – what? You decide to-to trick me into being possessed by some – some psycho angel?"

Dean ducked his head, drawing in a deeper breath. "He saved your life."

"So what!?" Sam said. "I didn't want to be saved at that price. God, Dean, you knew – I told you what it was like - with Meg – and Lucifer … and now … there's other lives … there's Kevin …"

"No," Dean cut him off sharply, taking a step closer. "That's not on you! Kevin's blood is on my hands, and that ain't ever getting clean. I'll burn for that. I will."

Sam blinked at the vehemence in Dean's voice, at the vitriolic self-loathing he could see in his brother's eyes.

"But I'll find Gadreil, and I will end that sonofabitch," Dean said, unsure of who exactly he was promising that retribution to … or for. "But I'll do it alone."

"Wh-?" Sam shook his head. "What's that supposed to mean?"

The anger had gone, as suddenly as it'd come. They'd all been his choices and he couldn't pretend they weren't. His burdens. His debts. Dean's gaze cut to the river. "Come on, man, can't you see? I–I'm poison, Sam," he said. "People get close to me, they get killed." He looked at his brother and gestured vaguely. "Or worse."

In his heart, he could feel the truth of that. It wasn't what he did or didn't do … it was who he was. Who he'd become. He could see Sam didn't get it, didn't see what he could see. Turning away, he looked at the darkness of the river for a long moment, wondering if it was possible to explain it.

"You know, I tell myself that I-I-I help more people than I hurt," he started, slowly. The feeling had been there for a long time, not looked at really, never articulated, not even to himself. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, a voice clamoured that it wasn't a good idea, to say it out loud, to let his brother see the depths of his doubts.

He agreed with the voice. It wasn't a good idea. But he needed to say it to someone and there was no one else. No one else who had the slightest chance of understanding, of knowing, all the way back to the beginning. "And I tell myself that I'm-I'm doing it all for the right reasons, and I … I believe that," he said, eyes closing at the hopeless truth of that. He did. It didn't help. Not reasons, his brother had said once, just good intentions. And good intentions didn't mean squat to anyone.

"But I can't – I _won't_ – drag anybody through the muck with me. Not any more." Opening his eyes, he lifted his head and met Sam's gaze, waiting for the argument, bracing himself for it.

"Then go." Sam swallowed, his eyes cutting aside to the black car, lashes dripping with the raindrops. "I'm not going to stop you."

Some part of him had known about this, he thought, letting his gaze fall. Had known that what had happened, for the right reasons and with his best intentions, had changed something in between them that was never going to be fixed. At his feet, the wooden planks of the wharf glistened with water, black and cold-looking. The job – _his_ job – was over now and the road waited, empty and endless.

He turned to look up the wharf at the angel, licking his lips as his throat filled and tightened unbearably. He was going to lose it if he stayed, he knew. Along with everything else that was already gone. Turning for the car, he started to walk away.

"But don't go thinking that's the problem, 'cause it's not," Sam called out from behind him.

Dean stopped, staring at the car. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Just go."

For an endless moment, Dean stood there, fighting the old habit, to turn back, to get things squared away, to make it good between them so he'd have one person in the world he could trust. One person he could love. Even if he could, he thought, it couldn't change anything, he couldn't keep dragging Sam – or anyone else – around with him to keep himself on the wire. If he fell, he fell, he thought uneasily. He would, like Benny, have to do it alone.

He started walking again, going to the driver's door of the black car and unlocking it, running a hair over his head as he slid behind the wheel, shedding the damp into the back with a flick of his wrist.

Turning the key, the engine rumbled its reassuring purring thunder, drowning out the thunder outside and his hands slid over the wheel, feet finding the pedals and he changed up and pulled out, the wash of the headlights lighting his brother and Cas, neither looking at him.

_Don't go thinking that's the problem, 'cause it's not_.

Dean pushed the memory of the words aside and dragged in a deep breath, filling his lungs and expelling it, dragging in another one.

Sam was alive. At the end of the day, that had to be enough.

Cas would heal him. What his brother did from here on in was up to him. The job – his one and only job – was over and he was going to have find some other reason to keep going.

The angel – Gadreil – would find another vessel, he thought, shifting gears mentally as easily as he did with the machine enclosing him. Or would he return to the original? It would make him a helluva easier to track down if he did, he considered, turning automatically west when he reached the interstate before he remembered he no longer had a home.

He looked at his watch and decided he could do about four-five hours before he'd need to crash. Gadreil had come to the hospital in Randolph, less than twelve hours after he'd sent the open prayer to the world. It stood to reason that his vessel might well be located somewhere in that radius. He hoped the hospital might have a record of the man they'd found in Sam's room, after the attack.

Unless Gadreil's vessel was a truck driver, he thought, a little acerbically. Or an itinerant. Or an airline pilot.

Shaking off the possibilities, he told himself he could only start with the best possible shot. He kept his other option buried. He'd investigate that only if he had to, he'd decided.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Ridgway, New York<strong>_

The motel was cheap, open and he'd pulled in when he'd felt tiredness sapping his energy like an open tap.

The queen single took up most of the room, and he looked around it or past it as he carried his gear in from the car, ignoring the lack of a second bed steadfastly. The shower had decent pressure and plenty of hot water. When he got out, he did some more ignoring, pulling the covers back from the bed and letting the towel around his hips drop to the floor as he reached for the lamp switch and plunged the room into darkness.

No tap-tap of fingers on a keyboard, or the soft glow of the screen painting his brother's face through the hours of the night. No stentorian snore from the other side of the room, bedsprings creaking as Sam turned over for the millionth time in an hour, trying to find a comfortable position. No breathing, with that distinctive and cumulatively irritating whistle at the end to let him know that he still had a family, they were both still alive and mostly still in one piece.

_They'd been checking and packing up their gear, before the stake-out at the warehouse in Chicago when he'd first realised that he would never get what he wanted, what he felt he needed._

"_You and me and Dad—I mean, I want us … I want us to be together again. I want us to be a family again." _He remembered hoping that Sam would want that too.

"_Dean, we are a family. I'd do anything for you. But things will never be the way they were before." _Sam had looked at him with an expression that might have been considered pity.

"_Could be." _

"_I don't _want_ them to be. I'm not gonna live this life forever. Dean, when this is all over, you're gonna have to let me go my own way."_

Rolling onto his side, his eyes squeezed shut. And that had been it. Sam had changed his mind, after their father had gone, and had been driven when he'd realised what his brother had done. But that moment in the hotel room in Chicago, long before they'd known about any of the really big stuff … that'd been the truth, Dean thought. That'd been the end. He'd just taken another eight years to let that finally sink in.

_You're not as broken as you think._

He frowned in the darkness as the demon's words came back to him. He was so busted to pieces he'd never been able to find all the missing bits.

A flashing glimpse of a memory of a voice and a light and a room shrouded in darkness hit him and he opened his eyes, swinging his legs out from under the covers and getting up to look for his duffel.

The last bottle of pills he'd gotten for Kevin were still in there, the blue ones. He rummaged through the contents of the bag by feel and felt the smooth round shape at the same time as he heard the rattle. Pulling it out, he sat on the bed and opened the cap, shaking two into his palm. For a moment he looked down at them, then shook out two more, tossing the four into his mouth and dry-swallowing them as he put the cap back on and tossed the bottle into the open mouth of the bag.

No dreams tonight. No nothing tonight but deep, drugged sleep, he thought, crawling back under the covers and dragging them over his shoulder. He'd had enough of his thoughts, his memories and the fucker who kept pushing his agenda onto him when he out for the count and couldn't defend himself.


	21. Chapter 21 Original Sin

**Chapter 21 Original Sin**

* * *

><p><em>And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.<em>

_And the Lord said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother?_

_And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?_

_And the Lord said, what hast thou done?_

_The voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground. _

_Now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand, when thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth._

_And Cain said unto the Lord, My punishment is greater than I can bear. _

_Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; _

_and from thy face shall I be hid; _

_and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; _

_and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me._

_And the Lord said unto him, therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, _

_vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. _

_And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him._

_~ Genesis 4_

* * *

><p><em><strong>Utica, New York<strong>_

The bar was ordinary, no different from any other low-rent drinking establishment he'd been in to sink one or several beers or to drown out his memories with one or several glasses of something stronger. Neon lighting, straight counter in front of the door, pool table to one side, booths and tables on the other. And Barry Lewinski was as ordinary as the fucking place he'd worked in. Emphasis on the past tense.

Dean picked up his beer and swallowed another couple of mouthfuls as he thought about the last three days' work. The hospital'd had the details of the bartender. He'd found the dude's address easily enough. Place of work was extracted from the next-door neighbour who'd walked Barry home a few times after they'd both had one or two too many.

But Barry had gone the day they'd pulled the angel out of Sam and the trail here, at least, was stone cold.

_Don't go thinking that's the problem_. Sam's words had taken to ambushing him without warning, no matter what he was doing and he signalled to the bartender for another. No, he knew what the problem was, what it'd always been.

One of the two waitresses working tonight walked behind him, and he turned his head, absently noting that she was attractive, her ass fit her jeans pretty tightly and it'd been a while since he'd had the time or the inclination to indulge in tension release the old-fashioned way.

"So."

Dean's head snapped around at the voice beside him.

"Is that boudoir smile for me?" Crowley asked him speculatively, a carnation held to his nose.

The knife was in his hand and held below the counter top as he stared at the demon, wondering if anyone here would really care if he stabbed the sonofabitch and walked out.

"At least buy me a drink first," Crowley quipped, glancing down at it.

"I said the next time I see you –"

"Death, yes, rings a bell," Crowley cut in, his hurry-up gesture as aggravating as always. "But let's not dwell on the past, shall we? This bar is a bust, as you well know. That waitress," Crowley added with a pointed look past Dean at her. "is trouble with a capital VD and your prey has left the building."

The demon had an annoying habit of cutting through the crap and Dean felt his fingers tighten slightly around the knife's hilt. It would go a long way to making him feel better about everything else if he could gank the King of Hell and take that item off the list of things he had to do.

"So it's time to move onto more pressing matters," Crowley continued serenely, apparently oblivious to how close he was to dying. "Like destroying Abaddon."

"Yeah, good luck with that," Dean said, the tension in his shoulders easing fractionally as he looked at the demon. Crowley might've gotten out from under his last meeting with the archdemon, but he was sweating slightly. "You do know what 'immortal' means, right?"

Crowley smiled tightly at him. "Immortality is highly overrated. There is something that can kill a Knight."

Dean lifted a brow sceptically.

"The weapon the archangels used to execute them," Crowley elaborated. "The First Blade."

"Never heard of it," Dean said. "Can I kill you now?"

"I've been chasing that blade for centuries, Dean," Crowley told him, and Dean sighed, setting the knife on the counter under his forearm and picking up his beer. The demon was almost as persistent as his brother when he was determined to share.

"The closest I got to it was in '89. One of my associates got wind of a protégé of Abaddon's, who claimed knowledge of the blade. But sadly, before he could nab him, a hunter … by the name of John Winchester … killed the protégé. I'm here to see if there's anything in the John Winchester Memorial library that might lead us to the First Blade – to killing Abaddon."

Dean looked at the demon, mouth curving up sceptically to one side. "You want to hunt – with me?"

"Well, I do love a good bloody comedy," Crowley said, the slight lift of his chin a challenge.

Every alarm was going off and Dean studied Crowley, wondering if the demon was scared enough to be playing straight with him. It wasn't in the demon's track record, he considered, remembering all too clearly Crowley's plan to capture Brady, a plan that had involved setting him up as bait. Crowley's word was one thing, but he had a habit of arranging other, less easily seen, angles for himself on any job.

He slid the knife back into the inner sheath of his jacket and pulled his father's journal from the more spacious interior pocket. Some traps had to be sprung, to see the players, to get the job done.

"There isn't much here about the Knights," he told the demon, flipping open the pages to the single, small reference they'd found when their paternal grandfather had come into their lives and died. At the hand of the archdemon.

"Oh, yeah, here it is," he said, skimming down the page and noting the code his father had left. "Yeah, he picked up a demon, made bones with Abaddon, but that's about all it says in here."

Crowley reached out, pointing at the page and Dean slid the leather-bound journal along the counter away from the demon automatically.

"What do those numbers in the margin mean?" the demon asked exasperatedly.

"None of your business."

"You're gonna play hard to get?" Crowley looked at him with a sour incredulity. "Do we have all the time in world?"

"It's code," Dean allowed, very reluctantly. "For one of my dad's storage lockers."

"And?"

"And he may've put something about the case there."

"What about the 'T' next to the numbers?" the demon persisted, looking at the open page.

"No clue," Dean said, shutting the journal with a snap and replacing it in his coat.

"Well, let's tootle along and find out, shall we?"

Dean looked at rows of bottles behind the bar, his face stony. Crowley got most amiable when he did have an angle. He knew that from long experience. And he was entirely too happy with himself right now.

Crowley frowned at him. "I'm sensing a degree of distrust here."

"Shocking."

"I have a pressing need to get rid of the archdemon," Crowley said with a gusting exhale. "_You_ have a pressing need to get of an archdemon. Occasionally, our goals are aligned –"

"And the last time our goals were aligned, I got beaten to a pulp by a demon _we_ were supposed to be trapping while you stood around and watched," Dean snapped. "How do I know this isn't going to go down like that did?"

"You don't," Crowley admitted freely. "That's what makes it fun."

"I'm having fun right here."

The demon slid off the bar-stool and leaned against the bar, looking at him speculatively. "We both know that sooner or later, you're going to need a weapon to kill Abaddon. What's the percentage in waiting?"

He turned on his heel and left the bar and Dean's expression slid into sour resignation as he slapped a couple of bills on the bar and followed.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

Castiel stood at the kitchen bench, looking down at the bread and peanut butter and jar of grape jelly on the counter in front of him. He couldn't understand where he'd gone wrong.

The distinctive clunking of the ring bolts at the front door of the bunker broke his contemplation of the failed sandwich and he hurried down the hall, meeting the youngest Winchester in the library.

"You look disappointed," Sam said, shifting the weight of his groceries as he walked past him to the kitchen.

"I am disappointed," Cas confided. "As a human, I had to eat all the time. It was time-consuming and wasteful and I found it irritating … but I think I might've developed, well … a taste … for food. Some food," he amended as Sam slowed and stopped by the counter and looked at the ingredients sitting there.

"PB&J's?"

"Yes, primarily."

"What's the problem?" Sam packed up the debris and moved it aside, unpacking the bag of groceries.

"I no longer taste it," Cas said with a deep sigh. "Neither singly nor in combination."

"You don't?"

"No, I can't … _taste_ … anything, really. Not the way humans experience the sensation. I can analyse it at a molecular level, differentiate the components including the quantities of carbohydrates, sugars, oils, saturated fats and the number and type of additives and preservatives that have been included."

"Sound like fun," Sam said, dimples deepening as he smiled reluctantly.

"It's not," Cas said, his tone frustrated. "It was tiresome, having to eat all the time, but the taste frequently made up for it."

"Sounds like most of the human condition, Cas."

"Yes." The angel finally gave up on his sorrowful contemplation of the sandwich and turned to look at him. "We need to continue with your healing. We're almost done."

Sam sat on the edge of the broad pine table and closed his eyes as Cas reached out with two fingers. He felt them settle against his skin, lightly, cool at first, then warming abruptly as what he thought of as Cas' power seeped from angel into him.

Usually, the last two times, at least, that warmth had grown to an almost unbearable heat before fading away. This time, it remained warm and nothing else happened.

"What?" Sam opened his eyes to look at the angel. Cas' expression was … unsettled, he thought.

"Nothing," Cas said, pressing his fingers a little more firmly against the man's forehead.

"You're a terrible liar," Sam told him, sweeping the hand from his forehead.

"That is not true," Cas burst out. "I successfully deceived and betrayed both you and your brother, more than once."

"Not the point, Cas," Sam said, holding his hands up pacifically. "What's wrong?"

"I noticed something," the angel said. "Uh, it's resonating inside you."

"What?"

"Something angelic," Cas said, not clarifying the problem anywhere near enough for Sam.

"Okay, uh, what the hell does that mean?"

"Maybe we should call Dean," Cas said.

"What?" Sam looked up at the angel in confusion. "Because my brother will understand something angelic resonating inside me better than I will – or you will?"

"No, because he is hunting Gadreil, and I think what I'm feeling is the residue of that angel's Grace against your soul."

Sam absorbed that. It didn't matter, not so far as he was concerned, anyway. "No."

"Sam –"

"He wanted to go and he's gone," Sam said, getting up and walking out of the kitchen. "We'll handle this."

"Sam, you understand that –"

"Cas, find everything you can on angelic lore, angel spells, Kevin's notes and transcripts from the angel tablet – I'll get the stuff from the files, and I'll meet you in the library."

He turned abruptly at the hall and headed downstairs, leaving Cas to make his way up to the floor of the oldest documents.

Thudding down the stairs, Sam shunted the thought of his brother aside with practised ease, forcing himself to concentrate on where the bulk of the order's case files on angel visitations would be located within the cavernous rooms housing the millions of cases, personal accounts and investigated phenomenon.

The problem wasn't the way Dean felt about himself. It'd never been that, and he knew, better than anyone else, exactly how his brother thought of himself; broken and damaged, in ways for which there weren't even words, unfit to be with people who didn't know what he'd done – or apparently, even those who did.

The problem was – he cut off the thought as he unlocked the first of the dark, silent rooms, and shoved it down deep as he walked to the card catalogue. He could bypass some time by checking out the rest on the computer interface, but he knew he'd seen a number of case files here, on meetings the legacies had had with the angels over the years. They'd called them the messengers.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Troy, New York<strong>_

"How much longer?" Crowley said peevishly from the back seat, his voice somewhat muffled by the hood he was wearing.

"You're lucky," Dean said. "Dad had a few storage places, one of them's in Anchorage." He glanced in the mirror at the demon's twitch, mouth quirking up. "This one's closer."

"I don't see why this rigmarole is necessary," Crowley muttered.

"Because I don't trust you one fucking inch, Crowley," Dean said, glancing into the back through the mirror.

"Charming."

"You asked," Dean said with a shrug, making the turn onto Rover Street.

The entire yard looked about four years worse for wear, rust eating at the doors and here and there where the reinforcement steel was poking through crumbling concrete. Stopping in front of the unit, he looked at the pressed steel doors for a moment. The last time he'd been here had been in '09. Looking for the Michael sword.

He rubbed a hand over his face. Another play. He'd wondered why, later, it had been so easy for trust the angels when he'd never even believed they'd existed.

Turning off the engine, he pulled the keys from the ignition and opened his door, going to the rear to drag Crowley out and keeping the demon in front of him as he unlocked the storage unit door and pushed it open.

The door rattled loudly as it rolled up, Dean checking the floor before he pushed the demon inside. There was a demon trap on the floor at the doorway to the interior caged section of the unit. He glanced up and made a mental note to put one above the outside door before he left.

He flicked on the light and pulled off the black hood, Crowley sputtering and smoothing his hair down as the bag was yanked up his face.

"Oh yeah," he said sourly, looking around. "I can see why this has to be guarded like the fucking Crown Jewels."

In the outer space of the unit, metal frame and wire mesh shelving were squeezed in alongside hastily built timber shelves and every surface was cluttered with objects, glass jars of cloudy liquid and powders that sparkled faintly in the oscillating flat white light of the fluorescent tubes; books, crammed tightly in between boxes and ceramic urns; tools, army footlockers and tradesmen cases, survival equipment, tarps and a tall cupboard with padlocked steel mesh doors that held a surprising variety of firearms.

Ignoring him, Dean walked across the devil's trap and into the heavily secured cage that held the more dangerous items his father had collected.

"I'll be right here," Crowley called after him, looking down at the painted circle on the floor.

The filing cabinets were under a high, clear bench with a desk lamp on it, and Dean flicked it on, pulling out the first drawer and looking through it. '89, the demon had said, and his father had filed by year and month, then by case numbers. His fingers wandered down the edges of the files, and he blocked out most of Crowley's non-stop muttered commentary.

_There._

He pulled out the slim manila folder, setting it on the bench and opening it. "Here we go," he said, half to himself. "Looks like my dad was working with another hunter when he grabbed Abaddon's pet."

He set the photograph of a young woman, tall and lean with cropped blonde hair and striking features, aside on the bench. Crowley skirted the trap carefully and pressed the side of his face against the mesh, straining to see the contents of the file.

"Well," he said, looking down at the photo as Dean picked it up again and turned it around to look at the back. "Guess the 'T' didn't stand for 'terrible' father, it stood for –"

"Tara," Dean said, his face thoughtful. "Monahan. Doesn't ring a bell."

"What else?"

Dean read through the neat handwritten account, his expression becoming stonily empty. John's description of the capture and the subsequent interrogation was clinical and without emphasis for most of the first few pages. Then it changed.

_The demon is almost powerful enough to break through the trap. Tara brought in the chains and that stopped it, but we only caught a few words of the spell it was using, to bind the air, it looked like, forcing apart even the invisible walls of the circle._

Terribilis ut ego sum filius Violatrix, moriemini. Mori tardius. Carnem et ossa avelli._ There is only one in Hell known as the Destroyer, demon of the abyss. Not a demon at all but a fallen angel. Is this what I'm looking for? The demon knows little of the fallen other than its master. Tara set up the intravenous drip and it's working, blessed salt and holy water seeping into its veins but it's too slow. We need more time._

He recognised the pulse of anticipation in his father's writing, the questions that riddled the narrative in this, as it did in John's journal. He also recognised the stages his father and the other hunter were taking the demon through, breaking through more and more layers, peeling them one at a time to get deeper, to get everything it knew.

_The First Blade. A weapon of angels._

Scrawled almost illegibly in one margin, Dean read the comment John Winchester had made on that and closed his eyes. Not once in his childhood or the years they'd hunted together after Sam had gone to college had his father ever mentioned angels. Or vampires, for that matter, he thought with a thin, whistling exhale.

Nine angels had fallen into the Pit with Lucifer. Nine of his most loyal followers, his guard. His lieutenants in the war. A thousand years had passed before the first human soul, Adam's first wife, Lilith, had been cast down as well. Dean knew, better than most, that Lucifer had been a child, spoiled and petulant and vicious. He had a feeling that those who'd followed him hadn't had much fun over that time.

"Well? What?" Crowley pressed hard against the wire and Dean looked up, his eyes slowly re-focussing on the demon.

"First Blade."

"I love it when I'm right," the demon smiled smugly. "Where is it?"

"No idea," Dean told him, hiding his satisfaction as the smile was wiped away. "The demon said it was the weapon of the archangels and had wiped out most of the Devil's boys by the time it was made. Didn't know where it was, thought it was a legend."

He looked back at the file. It had talked of a spell, to call to the blade, but John had either been not interested, which he thought was unlikely since a blade that could kill an archdemon would certainly have been of interest to the hunter, or that he'd found something else in the demon's confessions, something that had been more important. He frowned and closed the file.

"That's it," he told Crowley, picking up the photograph of the hunter and tucking it into his jacket pocket, then closing the file and replacing it in the cabinet. He needed to get this stuff to the order, sometime, he thought, looking around the cluttered room. What his father had learned, the curse boxes, the ingredients for spells that he didn't even know about, they all needed to be there, under the order's security measures. He flicked off the desk lamp and walked to the door of the cage, pulling it open as Crowley hovered at the edge of the trap.

"We'll see if Tara's still kicking," he said, pulling the door closed behind him and going to the shelf where he'd dumped the hood. As he picked it up he looked at the demon's expression, repressing a smile when he saw Crowley swallow. Three months in the unrelieved darkness had done something for the King of Hell, given him a healthy respect for what his mind could conjure in the way of torture, he guessed.

"Come on, won't take long," he said, injecting just the slightest hint of sympathy into his voice as Crowley stared at the hood.

Scowling, Crowley reached for it and pulled it on. The demon was easy to manipulate so long as his little weaknesses were remembered, Dean thought, letting the smile out as he pushed him through the door and turned to pull it shut and lock it. Self examination seemed to be Crowley's most vulnerable point.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

Sam stared sightlessly at the open file in front of him, hearing but paying no attention to the click of the leather soles of the angel's shoes on the parquetry floor behind him. Memory held him fast in its grip and he couldn't stop the flow, couldn't shut it down.

_I tried, Sammy. I mean, I really tried. But I just can't keep pretending that everything's all right. Because it's not. And it's never going to be. You chose a demon over your own brother — and look what happened._

In that moment, he'd understood that something he'd taken for granted his whole life had been broken, probably irretrievably.

_I would give anything—anything—to take it all back. _He'd told Dean desperately, a cold sweat icing the back of his neck as he saw how his brother was trying to keep his feelings muffled and padded and not spill out everywhere.

_I know you would. And I know how sorry you are. I do. But, man ... you were the one that I depended on the most. And you let me down in ways that I can't even ... I'm just—I'm having a hard time forgiving and forgetting here. You know?_

It wasn't until a lot later, a lot of thinking and going back over the years later, that he'd fully understood what had happened in that moment. He'd known, vaguely, in the way that family knows things without ever needing to articulate them, that there was a need, more than a need perhaps, in Dean to have someone to trust. Someone he could count on. For a long time, that had been shared between several people in his brother's life. Jim Murphy. Caleb. Their father. Then one by one, they'd been taken away and Sam had known, the minute he realised what his brother had done to save him, that he was the only one left.

He'd known Dean had needed it … and he'd betrayed that trust. The demon blood had been surging and fizzing in his veins. He'd felt the power ripple through him, stronger and stronger. Ruby had played on his need to avenge his brother's death, his brother's suffering – suffering that Dean had deliberately offered himself up for to ensure that Sam could live the life he'd wanted. He'd been lost and alone and he'd never been alone before. Never felt that gaping, yawning hole of no one caring for him, no one watching out for him. They were all good reasons to forget that what he was doing was not what Dean had wanted. But they weren't good enough.

_I just don't ... I don't think that we can ever be what we were. You know? I just don't think I can trust you._

At the time, that had hit him hard and low but he'd seen that pain in his brother's eyes from the perspective of what _he_ was losing, not what it was costing Dean.

In the little house in Kermit, he'd tried to bury his past, bury all that had happened and all that it had meant, to live in the here and the now. It hadn't worked particularly well, and those memories had surged up, bloated and poisonous, in his dreams, sometimes in his waking hours as well. He couldn't tell Amelia about them. He could barely acknowledge the guilt and shame that had filled him for himself. But he'd understood, finally, that for Dean, losing the one person he'd trusted, had loved … that had been worse than all the torments that Hell had inflicted. Worse than the sacrifice and death of their father. Worse than the losses and guilt he'd endured stoically over the years.

He let out his breath slowly. He'd done it again, after he'd found what Dean had done to Amy. Running an impatient hand through his hair, Sam's eyes closed tightly. He'd been angry but it'd been more than that. Amy had been a friend, but his anger hadn't stemmed from Dean's killing her. It'd come directly from his brother making a decision to override his arguments, he thought tiredly. From Dean's not trusting in him.

He wasn't sure why, at that time, he'd ever thought that his brother could trust him again. Nothing had happened in the years between the devil's rising and the return of his memories of being in Hell to rebuilt that trust. He'd been soulless. When his soul had been returned to him, he'd barely acknowledged what Dean had been struggling with. Leaving him in Cicero, both he and Bobby had thought had been the best for Dean. Neither had known him well enough to know that it had been torture. His brother had done his best for Lisa and Ben, shouldering those responsibilities as he'd shouldered every other … then he'd lost them as well.

_Dean, you know, you've pulled some shady crap before, but this … has got to be the worst. Whitewashing their memories? Take it from somebody who knows –_

He cringed at the memory of what he'd said then, oblivious to the deep fissure that had been in his brother over a decision driven by that same sense of responsibility. Dean hadn't asked Cas to remove their memories of him for their safety, to keep them from being used as leverage against him. He'd done it, Sam realised unhappily, to keep himself from ever going near them again. Cutting himself off from yet more people who'd given him some solace, even if it'd been limited. He'd done it because if he couldn't go back to them, they would be safer. From him.

_OK, fine. You know why I didn't tell you about Ruby, and how we're hunting down Lilith? Because you're too weak to go after her, Dean. You're holding me back. I'm a better hunter than you are. Stronger, smarter. I can take out demons you're too scared to go near. You're too busy sitting around feeling sorry for yourself. Whining about all the souls you tortured in hell. Boo hoo … I can see how broken you are, how defeated. You can't win, and you know it. But you just keep fighting. Just... keep going through the motions. You're not hungry, Dean, because inside, you're already...dead … Everybody leaves you, Dean. You noticed? Mommy. Daddy. Even Sam … The very touch of you corrupts. When Castiel first laid a hand on you in Hell, he was lost!_

Those memories came in a cascading waterfall of pain, pain he'd witnessed his brother stand there and take, time after time, no arguments to refute the lies or half-truths thrown at him. Now with the twenty-twenty clarity of hindsight, Sam could see how his brother had been eaten away, a little more with each one of them. Now, he could see Dean's reactions, clearly, maybe for the first time.

_Look ... Dean, the thing is, tonight ... it almost got you killed. Now, I don't care how you deal. I really, really don't. But just don't – don't get killed._

Had it already been too late back then? Dean had never mentioned Emma again. Never said anything about anyone he'd lost. He wasn't so sure it was just the Winchester stoicism anymore. He was beginning to wonder if his brother had ever really let go of anything.

_I'm just tired of all the fighting. And, you know, maybe I'm a little bit envious. I could never separate myself from the job like you could. Hell, maybe it's time for at least one of us to be happy._

Sam felt a shudder hit him as he remembered that moment, the fight gone from his brother as he'd said it, his pain visible in the slump of the wide shoulders, in the shadows that made his eyes look so much darker.

"Sam, I've found … well, something," Castiel said, breaking through the thoughts and memories as he walked to the table, Kevin's notes in his hands. "From the tablet. It's a detail of when angels leave their vessels."

Looking around at the angel, Sam sucked in a deep breath, pushing aside the past and forcing himself to concentrate on what Castiel was saying.

"I think," Cas continued. "The translation Kevin's done is a bit vague."

"Okay?"

"_And the departed shall remain, and the remains shall be the departed_," the angel read, frowning at the sheet.

"So, when an angel leaves the vessel, he leaves traces of himself behind," Sam conjectured. "You said that you thought it was the residue of Gadreil's Grace in me."

"Yes, but each time I heal you, it is reduced," Cas said, dropping the sheet onto the table.

"Is that good or bad?" Sam asked.

"Well, it's harmless, to you, I mean," the angel said, looking through the files of the order that were scattered across the table. "I saw, earlier, something about a ritual …"

He pushed several files to one side and picked one up. "The Grace itself might be helpful," he added distractedly, opening the file. "I don't know how the order managed to get this information but this contains a spell to track an angel through their Grace."

"Cas, didn't you say you took the Grace of another angel?" Sam frowned at him. "What if this angel did the same thing?"

"He didn't," Cas told him certainly. "I could see him, clearly when he was in you. I had never seen him before."

"Alright, what do we need to do?"

"We need to extract that remains."

"How do we do that?"

Cas looked down at the file. Looking over his shoulder, Sam saw the diagram the angel was looking at, a long, elaborate syringe, with a large gauge needle attached.

"Well," the angel said with a slight grimace. "Painfully."

Sam lifted the pages of the file, stopping when he saw the photograph of the syringe.

"Any idea where that is?" Cas asked.

"Yeah, it's in the apothecary," Sam said, staring at it. There were a number of what he thought were specialist tools the order had made for different rituals in the glass-fronted cupboard beside the filing cabinets. "Do you need anything else to do the spell?"

"A few ingredients," Cas said, looking down at the file.

"Come on then." Sam turned, heading past the tables for the hall. "Everything'll be in there."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Kingston, New York<strong>_

Dean pulled the drapes tightly across the windows of the motel room, glancing over his shoulder at the demon who was drawing out the circle on the square table by the kitchenette. The photograph was enough for a key, Crowley had said when he'd pulled in, the demon's face pale and sweating slightly from the hour under the hood.

"I need candles," Crowley said, turning to the sink and washing the blood paste from his hands. "And that pendulum."

Refraining from telling him where he could stick the pendulum, Dean walked to the bag he'd retrieved from the black car's trunk and pulled out four candles and the unwieldy pendulum frame, unlocking the legs and extending them to half their full length.

The map on the table was a small-scale of the country. To one side, a beaten silver bowl held Tara's photograph, powdered bone and cat blood, ground quartz and dried herbs. He watched the demon set the candles at the four corners of the map and handed him the opened frame, the demon positioning the legs to align exactly with the corners of the map, just in front of the candles.

"Alright," Crowley said, looking over the table critically and ignoring the box of matches Dean held out. He snapped his fingers and the candles leapt into flame, the contents of the bowl lighting as well, filling the room with a pungent odour as they burned. Dean saw the photograph curl up and disappear, the ashes mixing with the other ingredients. At the corners of the map, the candle flames turned green then purple and in the centre, the pendulum began to move.

"Marion, Indiana," Crowley said, peering down at the pinpoint shadow on the map when the pendulum stopped and hung there, pointing at the town like an accusatory fingertip.

Dean nodded. "About an eight hour drive," he said, glancing at his watch. He could catch four hours now and they'd be there by midday tomorrow.

"What are we waiting for?" Crowley asked as he watched Dean pick up the bowl and empty it into the trash can.

"Sleep, food," Dean said with a shrug, tossing the empty and now-cool bowl back into the bag. He glanced at the demon's hastily-concealed grimace. "Some of us need those things, occasionally."

"Of course," Crowley said.

"Gimme four hours, we'll go then."

"Right you are." The King of Hell disappeared and Dean let out his breath, relieved to be on his own. Crowley had been circumspect for the last day, but he couldn't expect it to last and the tension of waiting for the demon to say something, raise something that he didn't want to look at or talk about was grinding at him.

He finished packing up the spell and gave the table a rudimentary wipe over with a cloth from the kitchenette. There'd been a bar and grill on the way into the town, and he'd thought about going there, getting some food and having a beer or two, maybe finding himself some less aggravating company, but he found that his enthusiasm for the idea had waned. He'd get a couple of burgers and beers to go, he decided, walking from the room and locking the door behind him. And get some sleep.

* * *

><p><em><strong>I-76 W, Ohio<strong>_

The sun rose behind them, throwing the car's shadow out in front, a long, crisply-edged black silhouette the black car clung to, over the pitted charcoal asphalt. It was too familiar, this driving at dawn, seeing the world around just waking. Aside from the fact that riding shotgun was demon, instead of his brother, Dean thought with a caustic twitch.

"So, where's Moose?" Crowley asked, on cue.

Dean's gaze cut right and back to the road. He was too aware that not answering would give the demon an answer anyway.

"He still had some injuries," he decided on, after a second's hesitation.

"In the tender care of our favourite angel, eh?"

"Something like that," Dean said heavily.

"S'your problem," Crowley said, leaning back in the seat. "You don't let go of anything."

"Thanks for sharing."

He hoped the demon would take the hint. Traffic was starting to increase and he didn't want to take his attention off the road if the impulse to hit Crowley got too much.

"I meant to ask, what the story was on those books about you two," Crowley said a moment later, his voice casual.

The involuntary flinch at the mention of the series written by Carver Edlund sent the Impala veering into the next lane and Crowley lifted an eyebrow at the blaring horn of the driver almost collected to his right.

"A bit of a thorny issue?"

The demon had found them, somehow, he remembered. Charlie had told them it was the quickest way to know that much about their lives, as the reports of the deaths of those they'd saved kept filling up the printer bins at the bunker.

"Bad luck," he told Crowley repressively.

"Did you know about them?"

Letting his exhale whistle out through his teeth, Dean realised that no matter what he did or said, the demon wasn't going to let go of this. "We came across them a few years ago."

"And you let the writer live?" Crowley asked incredulously. "There's a lot of personal information in them. Not just to an enemy," he continued, oblivious to the creaking of Dean's tendons as his hands tightened on the wheel. "But even, well, neither of you seem like the type to wear your hearts on your sleeves, as it were."

"We didn't get the chance to voice our objections."

"Ah … angel intervention."

"Something like that." He turned and looked at the demon. "What are you angling for, Crowley?"

"Me? Just making a little polite conversation on a long and boring road trip," the demon said with a shrug. "I was totally enthralled when I came across the additional publications."

Dean frowned, thinking about the events that Charlie had told him made up the last two sets of the books. "Because you're in them?"

Crowley smirked slightly, smoothing down the lapels of his suit.

"Like it or not, accept it or not," he said, his tone coloured with a smugness that made Dean's hands clench tighter. "You two couldn't have put the Devil back in his cage without me."

"What'd you steal Sam's blood for?"

Crowley blinked. "What?"

"You heard me," Dean said, flicking another sideways look at him. "What did you want with purified human blood?"

"Just a fleeting moment of insanity," Crowley told him airily, waving a hand for emphasis. "I realised there was a better way."

"An' what's that?"

"Look around."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Marion, Indiana<strong>_

As pawn shops went, Dean thought, pulling open the front door and stepping inside, this had to be the neatest he'd ever been in. Stereos, tvs, radios, cameras, computer monitors and peripherals were stacked on the shelving that ran around the room. A glass-fronted and topped counter faced the door, and a lean and muscular blonde woman leaned on it, reading a magazine.

"Tara Monahan?"

She straightened slowly, setting the magazine down and looking at him. Around her neck a long necklace held a pendant, a small, leaf-shaped blade. He'd seen them before, but not often.

"That's what the sign says," she allowed. Her eyes narrowed slightly as she watched Crowley walk in behind him. "Can I help you?"

"Yeah, hope so," Dean said, strolling up to the counter. "John Winchester ring a bell?"

She looked from Crowley back to him, the faintly surprised expression in her eyes disappearing almost before he'd noticed it.

"I'm his son," he said.

"Are you?" she asked, looking down at the counter "Which one?"

"Dean."

He saw her face tighten, heard the sharply indrawn breath as she leaned to one side and rubbed her knee.

"Still in the family business?"

"Yeah, can't quit." He caught the snaking look she gave Crowley. "Listen, a bunch of years back, you worked a job with my dad," he continued, glancing at the demon. "Well, me and my – uh, associate here –"

The shotgun was a sawn-off double-barrel, older kind and it must have been behind the counter. The business end was now pointed at Crowley. Tara stared at the demon flatly.

"Ever since '92, I've had a painful little tickle in what's left of my knee whenever a demon shows its ugly face," she said conversationally. "Useful on a number of occasions."

"Hunters," Crowley said, rolling his eyes. "So trusting. I'll go grab a nice latte while you two catch up."

He stepped back and stopped dead, his expression flickering from sour to panicked instantly.

"You're not going anywhere."

"Listen, uh, Tara," Dean stepped forward, putting himself between the gun and the demon. "My associate –"

"Friend," Crowley interjected, stepping forward. "Besties actually –"

"Not helping!" Dean snapped at him.

"Not caring," Tara said, raising the gun to chest level and cocking both barrels.

"Look," Crowley said quickly, staring at the round holes at the ends of the gun. "I'm the King of Hell, he's a Winchester – there's a reason we're working together –"

"Yeah," Tara agreed, turning to pick up a flask from the shelf behind her. "It's called possession."

She threw the contents over Dean and watched him sigh and wipe his face with one hand.

"See?" He forced a smile. "I'm good."

Her expression didn't change and neither did the direction of the barrels of the shotgun.

"And yes, he's a demon," he said, looking sourly at Crowley. "But he's helping me on this."

"Helping you on what?" she asked, the gun lowering slightly and moving to rest between the man and the demon.

"You heard what happened?"

"I keep up with some folks, now and then," she admitted. "Angels fell."

"Yeah, that ain't the half of it," Dean said, pulling out the sheet from his father's file. "One of the Devil's finest is back and here on earth as well."

"They were all killed," Tara argued, glancing down at the sheet. "By the archangels, the legends said."

Dean shrugged. "With something called the First Blade."

Tara looked past him, through the front windows of the store, people coming and going on the sunlit street outside, and she nodded. "Gimme a minute."

She walked around the counter and flipped the store sign on the front door to Closed, locking the door and pulling down the slatted blinds on the front windows. She flicked on a light switch as she moved across the room to a door behind the counter.

"You found your dad's notes?"

"Yeah, but there's a lot missing."

"Not missing," Tara said, opening the door and walking through into another room. As the light came on, Dean saw another devil's trap, this one poured metal in a concrete surround, centred in the threshold to the room. "Come on."

He walked past Crowley, giving the demon an almost-rueful smile as he walked around the counter.

"Partners," Crowley called out behind him. "Remember!?"

* * *

><p>"Shut the door," Tara told him and she turned to the wall, touching a brass sconce to one side of a bookcase that took up most of the wall. "This is my place, I live upstairs," she said as the wooden case swung lightly open. "Every door, window, vent and chimney is warded but I'm still paranoid."<p>

"Old habits," he commented.

"Sure are."

Behind the bookcase, a massive iron safe had been embedded in the doubled thickness of the walls. Kneeling in front of it, Tara twisted the combination lock and pulled it open.

"The demon told us that he was working for a Knight of Hell," she said, pulling out files and books. "Your dad and me, we never heard of a demon like that, but it must've meant something to John because he got every last shred of information out of that demon, mostly in ways even I couldn't watch."

Dean looked at her as she ducked her head, keeping her gaze fixed on the pile of folders on her knees.

"Here," she said, separating a section of notes and diagrams and handing them to him.

He recognised the handwriting immediately and read fast down the pages. In the centre of the page there was a drawing, done in pencil and fine black pen. A demonic-looking skull.

"What's this?"

Tara looked at it. "That was the demon, near the end." She shook her head. "It was … changing the meatsuit's body, changing the texture of the skin, the bone structure, everything. I thought it was doing it to scare us back then, now I'm not so sure. I think it might've been happening without its control."

Frowning, Dean let that go. He read over the last few pages and looked up at her.

"Where's the rest?"

"That's it," she told him. "All that he wrote down and showed to me, anyways. He didn't say why he thought the story meant something. I figured at the time that maybe he was going after the blade – he used to talk about a gun, sometimes, a gun that could kill demons, but it was just talk."

"What happened?" Dean asked, looking down at the pages so she wouldn't see his reaction to that.

"He figured he'd gotten everything and we took it out," she said, pushing the files back into the safe and moving them aside to retrieve something deeper. "Sent it back to Hell. Had a helluva weekend together and that was the last time I saw him," she added as she pulled out a bottle rack holding several square-sided glass bottles, stoppered with cork and wax.

"What's that?"

"Ingredients to a spell that I can't complete," she said, getting awkwardly to her feet and putting it onto a table. "I couldn't get the idea of the First Blade out of my head and for a long time I was searching for a way to find it."

She rubbed her knee reflexively, her expression distant, lost in the past, Dean thought as he watched her.

"I looked all over the world," she continued after a moment. "Destroyed my knee, and my life."

"For what?"

"Location spell," she said, gesturing to the bottles. "All except one ingredient that I couldn't find."

"How sure are you that it's good?" he asked, looking at the oils and herbs and powders in the different bottles.

She smiled thinly. "Oh, I'm sure it'll work. I paid enough for it."

Keeping his thoughts to himself on that matter, Dean asked, "What's the missing ingredient?"

"Essence of kraken."

He nodded. "Give me a minute."

Walking to the door, he was turning the handle when Tara spoke behind him.

"John's dead, isn't he?"

He stopped, leaving his hand curled around the doorknob.

"I heard from a few people, but it's – it was hard to believe," she said, a little awkwardly.

"Yeah, he died a few years ago now," he said, keeping his back to her.

"Sorry."

He opened the door and looked at Crowley. "Heard of essence of kraken?"

"Essence of kraken? Got a whole warehouse full, in Belize," the demon confirmed. From the room at the back, Dean heard the safe close with a clunk, the dials spinning. "Tell her to break the trap and I can be there and back before she can say 'Presto'."

"Presto," Tara said, standing in the doorway behind the hunter.

"I can help," Crowley said, looking at her in exasperation and back to Dean. "Dean?"

"He wants Abaddon as dead as I do," Dean said, turning to look at her.

"And what's my cut of the deal?" Tara asked, looking from him to the demon. "Since I'm pretty much out of the business."

Dean looked around the store. "I don't know, what do you want?"

For a long moment she stared at him, and he looked back, unsure of what she was thinking behind the cool eyes and poker expression. Then she shook her head and picked up the shotgun, kicking back the faux Middle Eastern carpet and hitting the edge of the trap with a shellfull of iron pellets mixed with salt. The wooden floor splintered and split under the impact and the demon vanished.

"What are you doing?" she asked Dean. "Even if that blade is real, it ain't worth being bosom-buddies with the King of Hell."

Looking away, Dean sucked in a breath. "Abaddon – way worse," he told her, looking back to her face. "I'll deal with Crowley after. Trust me."

"You sound just your dad," she said, her mouth twisting up derisively. "Trust isn't a commodity I hand out to strangers."

"Ahem."

Dean turned to see Crowley standing at the doorway, a polished brass urn in one hand.

"Shall we?" the demon said, waving the urn suggestively.

Tara's gaze was still on him when he turned back to her. "Your party."

"In there."

"I can't go in there," Crowley complained, looking down at the second trap. "I'm not just a bleedin' go-fer!"

"Shut it." Dean walked past him and took the urn. "I'll tell you all about it."

The demon's breath hissed out in frustration as the door shut in his face.

* * *

><p>"What was that all about?" Tara asked, getting a ceramic bowl from a shelf and pulling out the sheet of parchment with the spell from the file on the table.<p>

"Who knows?" Dean said disinterestedly, reading through the spell and picking up the first bottle.

The ingredients combined as soon as they were mixed, the resulting liquid a deep amber and smelling of burned sugar and baking hot asphalt.

"Anywhere in the world?" Dean asked, looking at the map of the US lying on the table beside the ingredients and the bowl.

"Not according to the demon," Tara said with a quick shake of her head. "It said that the guardian of the Blade came to the New World in 1717."

Dean watched as she tipped the liquid over the map, pulling out a box of matches from his pocket as the paper soaked through to each corner. He lit the match and dropped it and the map caught fire, burning fiercely over the wettest surfaces then erupting in flame across the entire sheet. The flames died as quickly as they'd risen, one part of the map untouched.

"Missouri," Tara breathed, looking at the state.

"Big state to look for a needle," Dean commented acerbically.

"Wait."

At the corner of the state's border a single, small flame remained, wavering a little in an unfelt draught. They watched as it brightened to the cool blue of gas jet flame and moved in small jerks across the remains of the map, leaving no trail of char, meandering alongside the fine blue line of the Missouri River for a few moments then turning sharply south. It flared and died, leaving a perfectly round black mark in between two forested regions.

"Larger scale?" Dean asked, peering at the spot.

"Here," Tara passed him the large scale map from a pile at the other end of the table. There was only one town in the area.

"Salem it is," Dean said, straightening up. Another six hours if he bypassed Indianapolis, he thought.

"Look," Tara said softly, pointing to the map. Where the blue flame had died, a crystal sat, a little smaller than the size of a pea.

"What's that for?"

"Close encounter warning?" she speculated, looking around for something to pick it up with as Dean picked up the sheet of parchment detailing the spell. "You can't exactly break into every house in the county."

"Doesn't say anything about it in the spell."

Taking the crystal, Tara handed him a small silk bag. He opened it and she dropped it inside. "Can't hurt to take it along, right?"

"Unless it's a tracking device for whoever wrote the spell."

"Optimist."

He tucked the bag into his coat and shrugged. "You want in on this?"

She looked at him and smiled wryly. "No. I don't move fast enough anymore." Glancing at the closed door, she added, "And I don't ride with demons."

Dean let that go.

"Thank you," he said, looking down at the map. "Can I take the file notes?"

"Yeah, I have copies. I don't know why John gave me those anyway," she said, replacing the bottles in the keeper and sweeping the mess of ash and charred fragments of paper from the table. "I thought maybe he'd be back for them."

Dean rubbed the heel of his hand over one eyebrow as he looked down at the file notes in his hand. "He thought he'd be doing a lot of things that he never got around to," he said, tiredly.

"Same as all of us, right?"

"Yeah," he answered, not wanting to think about any of that. "That's the way it goes."

"Good luck, Dean," she said, letting her hand drop on his shoulder as he turned for the door. "Don't take your eyes off the ball."

Nodding, Dean left the room, tucking the sheets of paper into his jacket pocket. "Alright, we got a location, let's go," he told the demon.

"C'mon, that's it?"

Stopping at the front door of the store, Dean swung around and looked at Crowley, his face shuttered and his eyes dark.

"This ain't Butch and Sundance, Crowley," he said, his voice dropping. "We're not friends, never have been, never will be. Don't push me because I would love nothing better than to see you shining from the inside out with that angel sword sticking out of your neck."

He didn't wait for answer, turning away and unlocking the door, pushing it open with more force than was necessary as he walked out onto the street.

In the woman's eyes, when he'd told her that he was working with the demon, there'd been disappointment, and concern, but underlying that there'd been something else. A sadness, or regret. He'd known without her having to say anything that she'd been thinking of his father.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

Sam lay back on the reclining chair, uncomfortably aware that it was very similar to the one he'd been strapped to less than two weeks ago.

"The Grace is where?" he asked, trying to think of something that would take his mind off his memories.

"In physical terms, an angel occupies the endocrine system of the vessel primarily," Cas said, looking at the needle in his hand. "Control of the entire body through the hormonal release and the nervous system is possible from it."

"Huh."

"It's not entirely a physical procedure, however," the angel continued, his fingertips slipping along the skin of Sam's neck, seeking the precise entry point that would enable him to get the deepest into the thyroid. "In some crucial aspects it is a metaphysical connection, between the mind, body and soul of the vessel."

"Okay."

"But the residue of the Grace should be in the thyroid."

"Great."

"Unfortunately, to reach the gland with the needle without damaging anything else, I need to go in from the top," Cas continued, placing his hand over Sam's forehead and settling the needle point against his skin. "I'm sorry you cannot dull the pain."

"Get on with it, Cas," Sam said, turning his head away as he felt the prick of the needle against his neck.

The angel pushed in and Sam's teeth came together with a snap as he held himself still, his gaze fixed to the opposite wall. He could feel it, scraping along the cartilage of his windpipe as Cas forced it deeper and his hands balled into fists. In some senses, he'd endured far worse, but he acknowledged dryly to himself, he'd always been restrained and helpless at those times, not relying on his own will to hold himself in place.

The needle stopped and he was surprised to find that he could take a breath without feeling it.

"The process of extraction will be the part that actually hurts," the angel told him emotionlessly.

_Really?_ He wanted to say it out loud, with a huge helping of his brother's built-in sarcasm but he couldn't make the word come out.

Cas moved his hand to the syringe, holding it steady as he drew back on the plunger.

The pain was excruciating.

Sam's eyes screwed shut and he gripped the arms of the chair until the metal frame began to bend. He didn't know what it felt like, more localised that the burning out of the demon blood during the trials, more diffused than any injury he'd sustained over the course of his life, it felt as if the angel's residue was clinging to his cells, and each incremental withdrawal of the plunger was ripping him apart.

"Is it working?" he wheezed as Cas paused slightly in the extraction.

"Yeah."

"But?!"

Cas didn't respond immediately and Sam's breath whistled out through his teeth.

"Cas! What!?"

"I – I need to push the needle deeper," the angel told him apologetically. "We need more Grace to cast the spell."

Deeper. The thought, the concept, swirled through the pain filling him and disappeared. One time pays for all, he told himself.

"Do it."

"Sam, if I get too close to the –"

"Dammit, Cas, just do it!" Sam ground out, his face twisting as the suction of the syringe sent waves of agony through him, spiralling up into his head at the same time as it flooded down his body, the clusters of nerves sparking and burning in response.

The groan that emerged from between his teeth was low and controlled as Cas pressed the needle steadily deeper into the gland, but no less tortured for that. Behind his closed lids, colours and shapes exploded and twisted and the overload of his nervous system pulled him away, to the edge of darkness where thought and memory and emotion intertwined.

_I'm gonna take you care of you. I've got you. That's my job, right? Watch out for my pain-in-the-ass little brother? Sam? _He'd slid into the black with Dean's voice getting more and more distant.

_FLASH! _A burst of brilliant light and the demon had died under his hand, the girl lying in a pool of blood next to him_. _

_Get in there and heal him. Miracle. Now! _The angel had shaken his head, and Sam had seen his shame_. I can't. _You and Uriel put him in there—

_FLASH! _He could feel the burning, through his arms and chest as the blood burned in him, a whispering voice, familiar but distant in his mind, telling him to go on, finish what he'd started, complete the contract_. _

_Believe in that! Believe me, okay? You gotta believe me. You gotta make it stone number one and build on it. You understand? _His brother had been holding his hand, pressing hard against the half-healed wound on it, and the devil had disappeared, and he'd seen Dean's fear, a black shadow beneath his brother's determined expression, at the back of his eyes. He'd believed and the pain had taken the devil away. Not for good, but for long enough.

_FLASH! _Leaning over Castiel, watching the deep stab wounds stop bleeding, close up, disappear_. _

_This is what happens when you throw a soul into Lucifer's dog bowl. And you think there's just gonna be some cure out there? _He'd seen Dean flinch from the words, seen his eyes shine for a second before his brother had turned away. The cut of the accusation hadn't been meant, not really, he thought, but it had cut just the same_._

The pain diminished rapidly, soreness taking the place of the agony.

"What – what happened?" Sam asked, his voice cracked and thick.

"Your body is regressing to the state it was in before Gadreil," Cas said, looking doubtfully at the amount of Grace the syringe held.

That hadn't just been his body regressing, Sam thought, his hand lifting to hold the throbbing ache of his neck.

"Do we have enough Grace for the summoning spell?" he asked, pushing aside the too-vivid memories.

"Sam –"

"Do we or not, Cas?!"

Looking down at the syringe, Cas said, "No."

"Then keep going," Sam told him, turning his head aside again, the red circle that marked the needle's entry clear against the pallor of his skin.

"I could undo all that Gadreil has done for you, Sam," Cas argued half-heartedly. "All that I have done."

"Do you think that matters?" Sam closed his eyes. "Just get the Grace, we have to find that angel."

"Dean said," the angel started, hesitating as he saw the spasm twitch Sam's features. "He said that you chose to live, instead of completing the trial, closing the Gates."

_I'm in here, with you. As you're in here, with me. You're ready to let go, Sam, ready to die._

Sam stiffened at the barely audible whisper of memory. Was it memory, he wondered disjointedly?

"Yes," he said to the angel.

"Why then did you want to die, Sam?"

"I –," Sam stopped, his reasons, all those reasons that had seemed so clear before, gone.

"It was my choice," he said finally, pushing aside the unease that filled him at not being able to remember.

"Was it?" the angel asked.

Something in Cas' tone, made him turn his head. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know," Cas admitted uncomfortably. "Only that I think the final trial, curing Crowley, was not as simple as a transfer from you to him."

"Wha-what do you mean?"

The angel shook his head. "You were ready to live, you wanted to live, then … you didn't. If nothing else, these last few months of living as a human being, struggling with the concept of mortality and the pain of life, have taught me that it is not a natural state of being, to want to lie down in the earth and let it be over." The angel bowed his head, eyes half-closed with memory. "I had more reason than most to want an ending – to the guilt and shame of what I have done, to the pain I can see I have brought to those around me – and yet, I would not let go, not while breath still filled my body."

_You're not looking at a – a dead end anymore. You were right. I see light at the end of this tunnel. And I'm sorry you don't. I am. But it's there, and if you come with me, I can take you to it._

Sam dragged in a deep breath as the memory of his words to his brother played across his thoughts. He'd promised Dean that he would be there, and at the time, he'd meant it, had wanted to keep that promise more than anything else in the world. He had seen a way through, for both of them. A life that could mean something and still include what they both desperately needed.

"Cas –" he stopped again. There was no time to work this out right now. There was a job. And he knew what his brother would do. What his father would've done. The needs of the many outweighed the needs of the one.

"My life … it's no more important than anyone else's," he said slowly, his eyes closing. "Not yours or Deans … or Kevin's." He couldn't keep making the choices that were about what he wanted. He understood how his brother felt, bound and gagged by a lifetime of responsibility for everyone else. "Please. _Please_ help me to do something right."

Pushing the needle back through the hole, Cas flinched as Sam arched a little on the chair, the colour in his face vanishing abruptly, every muscle contracting to steel rigidity as he forced himself to remain unmoving.

"Keep going," he managed to get out, his voice barely a whisper. "Get it all."

That faint voice that had been with him … had it been there in the church? Or had he heard it after? He didn't remember enough of _after_ to be sure. It was gone now. Completely, he thought.

Pain coruscated throughout muscle, nerve and bone, and the scream that tore out of him was involuntary, bursting the small blood vessels in his throat in its power, erupting from his mouth with a spray of fine red droplets that hung in the air as the plunger drew back.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Salem, Missouri<strong>_

Against the side of his chest, there was a warmth. Dean turned right at Main Street and felt it increase. Demon games, he thought, following the subtle temperature fluctuations onto a sodden gravel road.

"You seem pretty sure we're heading in the right direction," Crowley said, breaking the last two hours of silence.

"Got a feeling," Dean told him, his tone warning the demon to leave it at that.

The farmhouse was the last one, right at the end of the narrow road, and the Impala pulled up a little past the open gateway. He turned off the engine, the deep glub-glub fading into a silence that suggested that their arrival had been announced at least a couple of miles back.

"Out," he said to the demon, not waiting to see that the order had been obeyed.

Getting out of the car, he looked around curiously. The scene, although cold and damp with low cloud covering the surrounding low hills and puddles reflecting a chill, grey sky, was still bucolic. Neat gardens and a truck parked tidily to one side of the driveway suggested an orderly mind.

"Wait," Crowley said, stopping by the front of the car.

"What?"

"I'm feeling something," the demon told him, clutching the lapels of his coat together as he looked around uneasily.

Dean exhaled audibly, turning back to the house. He stopped as Crowley's hand closed on his arm.

"I feel something dark."

"What? Darker than you?" he asked a little disbelievingly, pulling his arm free of the demon's grip.

Crowley made a face as his gaze moved around the farmyard. Dean saw him freeze.

"Oh no …"

Turning to look, he saw a man in a bee-keeper's suit walking through the garden, a trail of pale grey smoke ribboning out behind him from the smoker held in one hand.

"We need to leave here," Crowley said tightly. "Now."

Dean looked at back at the demon. "What? Are you allergic to bees?"

"He's not a bee-keeper," Crowley said through clenched teeth. "That's the Father of murder."

"Sorry? Who?" he asked, looking back at the man who was pulling the slides from a box hive. The demon's sense of the melodramatic was tiring at times.

"It's Cain."

"As in … Cain and Abel?"

"Dean, we need to be a world away from here," Crowley said, his gaze flicking between the hunter and the man half a field away. "From him."

He turned around and Dean started back as the bee-keeper materialised in front of the demon.

"You're not going anywhere," Cain said, lifting the veil and wide-brimmed hat from his head and staring at the demon. "Crowley."

"Little misunderstanding," Crowley sputtered, taking a step back.

Cain smiled. "I think not." He looked over to the house. "It's tea-time, and you and I are long overdue for a conversation. You'll join me, of course."

Dean watched Crowley's face twitch uncomfortably. "Of course."

"You're invited as well," Cain said, looking past Crowley at him. "I insist."

He gestured with the hat toward the house and Dean kept his face expressionless as he watched Crowley turn and walk down the drive with jerky, uneven little steps, following the demon across the wet grass and up the porch steps.

"Make yourselves comfortable," Cain said, holding the door as Crowley stuttered inside on stiffened legs. "I'll make the tea."

Dean watched with a detached amusement as the demon turn right and walk through the doorway into a living room, stopping in front of the long sofa and dropping helplessly onto it. He gave the room a cursory once-over, noting the exits as he sat down on the sofa next to Crowley.

The room matched the house, plain and simple, ancient wallpaper in some unidentifiable shade of yellow picked up by the old and threadbare furniture that was grouped in a friendly huddle in front of a fire burning on a plain brick hearth. To either side of the fireplace, matching stained glass windows depicted a bee-hive. Two doors opened from the internal walls, the double doors opening to the hall and across from that, another set of glass-paned doors half-open and showing part of a comfortably-sized kitchen. A single door led into a smaller room, lined with shelves and containing a large desk and a couple of armchairs. Study maybe, he thought, his gaze shifting back to the demon.

"Why don't you just zap out of here?" he asked, looking past him to the soft sounds that were coming from the other room.

"I'd never leave my domestic partner-in-crime," Crowley said distractedly, his hands knotted together on his lap.

Dean snorted and got to his feet. "Yeah, think your heart grew three sizes? You can't zap out of here, can you?"

"Cain's doing something to me," the demon admitted unwillingly.

"Well, it's not your day for getaways, is it?" Dean remarked, walking around the room and peering into the kitchen cautiously. "Alright, so tell me about this Cain," he said, keeping his voice low as he turned back to the demon.

"Well, after Cain killed Abel, he became a demon," Crowley said tersely, looking up at him.

"What d'you mean – _became_ a demon?" Dean asked, turning back from the window to look at him.

"I mean … became the deadliest demon to walk the face of the earth," Crowley said, the pitch of his voice rising slightly in exasperation. "Killed thousands. The best at being the worst. And then he just – disappeared," he said, shrugging. "Everyone thought he was dead – or at least, hoped he was."

Dean looked at the free-standing timber-and-glass frame, positioned between the fire and a comfortable club-style armchair. In it, hundreds of bees crawled between the panes of glass.

Became_ a demon_, he thought, wondering at the King of Hell's phrasing. Not … went to Hell and was made into a demon. He couldn't work out if that was meaningful or not. Crowley was usually pretty precise when it came to word choices.

"Do either of you keep bees?" Cain's voice intruded on his thoughts and he straightened up slowly from behind the bee case, watching Cain set a tray with teapot and cups and saucers, sugar and milk bowls and a pot of comb honey down on the low table in front of Crowley. "It's very relaxing. And the honey … well, I keep it right on the comb."

"There you are." He poured tea into a delicate china cup and passed it to the demon. Dean walked around the chairs and sat on the sofa, sliding a sideways at Crowley as the cup rattled in the saucer in his hand.

"The bees are dying. Too many pesticides they say," Cain continued meditatively, pouring a second cup for Dean and handing it to him. "One of God's more intricate ironies. It will be peaceful."

"Peaceful?" Crowley asked hesitantly, tea slopping into the saucer.

"When the bees are gone, humanity will perish." Cain smiled as he picked up his own cup and sipped the hot tea. "A not completely unsatisfying thought."

His expression smoothed out as he studied them over the rim of the cup. "So, what are the King of Hell and a Winchester doing at my house?"

Dean looked at him warily. "You know who we are?"

"I'm retired," Cain said, setting his cup on the table beside him as he leaned back comfortably in the chair. "I'm not dead. What I don't know, is why you're looking for me – and more pertinently, how you found me?"

"Ah, it's a funny story, really," Crowley said, the words coming out in a rush on his exiting breath. "Bit of a mishap with a spell."

Dean scowled as the demon turned to him. "We really should be go–"

In the armchair, Cain lifted a finger to his lips. "Sssss-ssssssshhhhhhhh."

Like a soft draught, the sibilant sound seemed to sweep across the room and Dean's eyes widened fractionally as the volume of Crowley's voice faded and disappeared, the demon's utterances reduced to soft breathy whispers, his mouth opening and closing ineffectually.

He turned back to look at Cain. "Oh, you gotta teach me how to do that."


	22. Chapter 22 If You Want Blood, You Got It

**Chapter 22 If You Want Blood, You Got It**

* * *

><p><em><strong>Salem, Missouri<strong>_

"Why are you here, Dean?" Cain asked, a warning implicit in his voice.

Setting the cup on the table, Dean met the demon's eyes. "We're looking for the weapon the archangels used to kill the Knights of Hell," he told him bluntly. "The First Blade. We need it to kill a Knight of Hell."

Beside him, he could feel Crowley's involuntary twitches through the sofa cushion. Every single time he'd had to face an entity of unimaginable power, he'd found that the truth worked better than a lie, resignation to his fate was more readily accepted than fear and respect was repaid, sometimes in unforeseeable ways. He wasn't changing now.

"Abaddon," he elaborated as Cain failed to respond.

The demon was looking at him, but he thought Cain wasn't seeing him. Resting on the wide arm of the chair, the demon's left hand was moving, thumb plucking at and turning the filigreed ring he wore on his ring finger.

The silence stretched out, broken by the soft sound of the fire, burning the logs in the hearth, and the odd, little clicking sound of the demon's thumbnail on the ring. Dean tried to work out which part of what he'd told Cain had caused the agitation he could feel below the expressionless and motionless visage.

"Look, I get it," he tried again, his gaze cutting away as he shrugged. "You're retired. We're not here to get between you and the, uh, bee-keeping twilight years," he said evenly. "But it's bad out there and I'm just lookin' to even the odds."

Cain's eyes refocussed on him. "One last time, how did you find me?"

"We didn't," Dean said honestly. "The location spell was for the Blade. One-time deal."

The demon absorbed that, eyes narrowing slightly. "Anyone else know you're here?"

"No."

"No?" Cain looked at Crowley and lifted his hand abruptly. From the seam of the demon's jacket a coin pulled through the thread and flew across the gap between them, smacking into Cain's hand. "Are you sure about that?"

Dean looked at the demon next to him with cold murder in his eyes. Crowley's mouth open and closed, gasping like a fish out of water, his eyes wide and his hands waving in the air.

Watching them, Cain laughed softly. "Demons lie, Dean, didn't you know that?"

Turning to look back at him, Dean saw the coin disappear in a puff of fine, metal powder.

"Well, it's been a pleasure having company," Cain said, getting up and blowing the powder from his hand into the rising hot air of the chimney. "But once a century is enough for me," he continued, turning back to look at them. "You can let yourselves out."

Dean gave Crowley a last filthy look and got to his feet, following Cain across the room toward the kitchen. "Hey, listen pal, we're not leaving here without that blade."

"You have quite a reputation, Dean," the demon said, turning around to face him. "I see the part about the reckless courage is true."

"Well, what can I say?" Dean said tightly. "I'm an all-in kind of guy. Abaddon is the last Knight of Hell – and if you're out of the game what the hell you care if she dies?"

The demon moved, he didn't just blink in and out of existence, but it was so fast that Dean didn't see it until Cain's hand was poised in front of his throat, fingers held tightly together in a pointed wedge and just touching the skin under his Adam's apple, the other hand clenched tight on his coat. Cold blue eyes were inches from his and he didn't have to be told he'd be dead now if that was the way Cain wanted it.

"If your friend here could talk, he would tell you that I trained the Knights of Hell," Cain said, relaxing his grip on the hunter's coat and stepping back when he saw Dean had registered the brief lesson satisfactorily. He waved a hand absently at Crowley. "I built that entire demonic order with my own hands, Abaddon included."

Dean swallowed the rising rage at the additional example of Crowley's deception, nodding slightly. "Well, that is information I could've used five minutes ago," he said, voice getting louder as he turned to look at Crowley.

"I-s-I-ca-" the demon whispered, arms waving in frantic and helpless gestures around him.

"Here's something your friend doesn't know," Cain said, stepping closer to Dean again. "That no one knows, in fact, with the exception of Abaddon. It wasn't the archangels that slew the Knights. It was me."

An image appeared in Dean's mind, the man in front of him, flames all around, a weapon held in one hand and blood and ash and gore painted over him from the bodies at his feet. He blinked and it vanished, but the narrowed eyes looking into his suggested that it hadn't been from his imagination.

"Why?" Dean asked suspiciously, brows drawn together. "Why turn on your own?"

The demon's face creased up in a cold and humourless smile, blue eyes like chips of ice. "Once again, I admire your courage. And you need to work on your speed. But if you'll excuse me, I have errands to run in town."

Dean watched him walk away without moving. No one and nothing he'd ever faced had moved quite like Cain, the economy of energy and a deadly sudden stillness. Now, at least, he knew why.

He hadn't been able to get his head around the concept of a demon retiring in the first place. Hiding out, though, that made sense, especially if the demon in question had slaughtered eight of Lucifer's top guys. Hiding out was just a sensible precaution.

"Goodbye, Dean Winchester." Cain stopped near the door. "I think we'd both be happier if you never return."

He passed out of the room and they heard the back door open and close, Crowley gasping as a truck engine started up somewhere in the yard.

"God, bloody hell."

"The hell, Crowley, you set me up!?" Dean turned on him, hand sliding under his coat as he reached for the sword.

"I didn't! I didn't know Cain was going to be here, and he'd gagged me before I could tell you about the Knights!"

"And the coin?"

"That was just a precaution," Crowley said hurriedly, hands held up. "I always carry it, since … well, I just didn't think of it whe–"

"Let's go," Dean cut off the explanation impatiently, his fingers unwillingly releasing the hilt of the sword and leaving it in place. "Anything else you forget to tell me?"

Crowley shook his head and scuttled out of the living room to the hall. He opened the front door. "Well, that was lovely," he said, dragging in a deep breath of the cold, damp air. "Can we leave the country now?"

"Wait a minute," Dean argued, lengthening his stride as the demon scurried faster down the steps and toward the car. "You said that the First Blade was our only shot at killing Abaddon, this is the closest you've been to it. We're not leaving."

"Will you listen to reason, for once!" Crowley expostulated as they stopped on either side of the Impala.

"Hey, he said he was going into town," Dean said, ignoring the pallor of the demon's face and the beads of sweat rolling down Crowley's brow. "Awesome. We wait till he's gone, come back, bust in, take what's ours."

"Ours?"

"Soon to be ours," Dean modified, opening the door and sliding into the driver's seat. "Got it?"

Crowley got into the passenger side, huffing slightly as he settled back against the seat. Dean reversed out through the gateway and swung the car around, driving smoothly down the long gravel back to the highway and turning left instead of right. In the rear view mirror, he saw a red truck turn right behind him, chugging steadily toward Salem.

"Alright, while we're giving him time to get a couple of miles, everything," he growled at the demon sitting next to him. "You leave out a single detail that I find out about later –"

"I know, I know, buried in pieces," Crowley cut in sharply. "It wasn't solid information, right? Just hearsay and rumour and most of it over a hundred years old, circulated through demons, for cryin' out loud, so I didn't know how much to take as gospel – so to speak."

Dean's eyes were slightly hooded as he waited and Crowley shrugged. "Something happened, back in the day. The rumour was that Cain was trying to get out, in the middle of the Civil War, yet, and the Knights allied to stop him, somehow getting out of Hell to do it. He wiped them all out except Abaddon, but I don't know why she wasn't included."

"With the First Blade?"

"That's the story."

"Then what?" Dean asked tersely. There was something off in Crowley but he couldn't put his finger on it. Something that seemed too comfortable in the demon … as if … as if he was expecting the questions.

"Then he disappeared, and I mean, really disappeared," Crowley said, gesturing vaguely at the countryside surrounding them. "No one ever heard from him again and we all breathed a sigh of relief and tried to forget about him."

"And the bit about him training the Knights? How'd you neglect to mention that little item?"

"I was a crossroads demon at the time," Crowley reminded him acerbically. "A very minor crossroads demon, it might be added. I didn't go near the Knights and with good reason. Lucifer had them for more than a thousand years before he got Lilith. They were not what you would call in their right minds."

"Abaddon seems to have it together," Dean countered mildly.

"Seems being the operative word," Crowley corrected him. "She wants to raise Hell, literally, on Earth. Have demons overrun the population, forget about deals and temptation and go straight to chaos and destruction." He looked at the man beside him. "You know how long that'd last? Even with a global population of seven billion?"

Dean looked at him without responding and the demon shook his head. "About five years. Then nothing left. Dust, ash and every demon would die slowly, of starvation. Stupid bint is the most short-sighted of the lot of them."

He looked back at Dean and saw the sceptically cocked eyebrow. "Yeah, well, I believe in sustainability. Sue me."

Turning the car around, and heading back to the farm, Dean thought about the demon's assertions. He wasn't far gone enough to believe Crowley completely, but at least some of what he'd said had chimed with truth.

"What about the story in the bible?" he asked the demon as he turned back onto Cain's access road.

"Never had much to do with the bible," Crowley said disinterestedly as he watched the farm get closer. "Couldn't say."

Driving through the farm yard gates, Dean eased the car around the side of the house, bumping gently over the tussocky grass behind several sheds and parking well out of view of the road or the neighbours.

"For the record, this is a bad idea," Crowley said, staring at the house as the engine died.

"Duly noted."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

_Help me do one thing right._

The angel drew back on the plunger, drawing the shining liquid light into the syringe as the needle pushed steadily deeper into Sam's neck. He was grateful that the body of the human had overloaded on the last push, Sam's consciousness dragged down and away as the body tried to protect itself, tried to protect the reason for its existence. Blood vessels had ruptured through the brain as the connections between thyroid, pituitary and pineal glands had been drained. Twisting trails of blood had leaked from Sam's nose and from his mouth, seeping out of his eyes and ears.

Twice he'd had to stop and wait, helping the heart to regain a stable beat before continuing. The endocrine system was centred in the brain, but the functions of organ regulation and reproduction were more distant and Gadreil's abrupt departure had left residual Grace in all the glands.

Castiel no longer remembered exactly how he'd come to think that a deal with the King of Hell would save the world and the people he'd come to care about in it from the wrath of his brothers in Heaven. He thought that machinations of Naomi had removed some critical memories, some critical thoughts about that time. He remembered his friend shouting at him, in a room constructed by Zachariah, the man filled with fear and frustration that he was trapped and helpless while his brother was treading a path to certain damnation. He remembered Dean's face, half-lit by the moonlight coming in through a tall window, painted in the shadows of the Enochian wards that had been drawn over the glass panes. He remembered praying to his Father, for a sign that he was doing the right thing and hearing nothing in return.

After he'd taken the residue of Lucifer from Sam's system, he'd been lost once again. And once again, he'd been brought back – to sanity, to reality – by the soul he'd raised from the depths of the pit. In a place of endless running, of pewter light and voracious, predatory appetites, he had begun to see what he'd done, his memories returning intact, as the recordings of all angels did eventually, shock and grief and shame, his essence, the harmonious wavelength of his being, unable to keep them fragmented and meaningless forever. Purgatory had been a land in which he could not die, but he could be punished. And he had welcomed that penance, had needed the pain and suffering to atone for his actions.

And then he'd been rescued.

The second he'd touched the Angel tablet and the framework Naomi had installed in his mind had been blown apart, he'd lost more of himself. It'd come back, slowly, in pieces. Each piece had been a sword's edge, cutting through him. His attempts at atonement, his search for redemption had been in vain. Under the instructions of the auburn-haired angel, he had killed his own again. Had betrayed and lied. Again. Had tortured and killed demon and human. Again.

He looked at the level of the Grace in the syringe and drew the needle out of Sam's neck gently. For a moment, he thought he'd lost the young man, then Sam's chest rose sharply, sucking in air, and fell again, and Cas blinked, light-headed suddenly with the relief that he hadn't compounded his mistakes with the death of Dean's brother.

Good intentions blowed, he thought, lapsing into the colloquialisms that came more easily now after five years of spending so much time with the Winchesters. Good intentions counted for nothing in his Father's eyes. What one meant to do, and what one did were worlds apart, and it seemed to him that the more lofty and ambitious the intentions were, the worse the catastrophic mess they left behind when they failed.

* * *

><p>Sam's eyelids fluttered and he turned his head. "Cas? What the hell?"<p>

The angel laid his fingers over the forehead of the man, drawing on the power of the soul. He had drawn almost all of Gadreil's Grace from Sam's body. Almost all of it. He felt it dissolve and vanish as Sam's body healed completely, each organ restored, functioning as it should, the nervous system, muscle, bone and tissue resurrected with new cell growth, replacing every burned and damaged part.

On the chair, Sam arched up involuntarily as energy fluxed through him, discharged and looping, the heat of regrowth absorbed and shed under the control of the angel.

"Cas, what did you do?"

"I've healed your wounds, completely," Cas said levelly.

"And the Grace?" Sam asked, vaguely astonished that while he had the memories of the excruciating torment he'd gone through, he didn't even have a vestige of a headache right now.

"Well, whatever Grace was inside you is gone now," the angel said, looking down at the syringe in his hand. "What was left of Gadreil's essential essence is in here." He turned away, setting the glowing syringe carefully into the box on the table. "We'll just have to try the spell with what we have."

"Dammit," Sam said softly.

Cas turned back to him. "Sam, there was little left inside you, and attempting to draw every last molecule from you would've certainly killed you. I want to find Gadreil as much as you do. But not to the point of killing you for no real gain."

At the phrasing, Sam looked up, dimples deepening to one side as his mouth quirked up. "Good to know."

"You know what I mean," Cas said, shaking his head. "I have been slow to appreciate the terrible struggle of being human, the choices and the sacrifices it seems to demand even from those who are not engaged in saving humanity from outside evil."

He looked up at the man sitting on the chair. "And I have been slow to recognise the ease with which pride or arrogance makes choices seem right, when they are not. The only person, who has screwed things up more consistently than you, is me."

Sam looked away and the angel ducked his head as he belatedly realised the implicit blame in his words. "I'm sorry."

He remembered his unease when he'd met Sam Winchester. Remembered feeling the taint in the man, underlying Sam's sincere delight in meeting an angel. He remembered watching Sam reduce Alastair to a pile of ash, burning the demon from the inside out without ever touching him and the fear that had risen in him at the sight of it. Sam had frightened him, with the power and the certainty he'd seen in him. Now, though, he knew better how easy it was to be certain of something that was a lie. Now, he knew that in comparison to the pride that had filled him, Sam's mistakes had been minor. The man had not killed indiscriminately, filled with wrath at his brothers. He had.

"I tried to find punishment in Purgatory, tried to make amends for what I'd done, not only on a multi-dimensional scale, in Heaven and on Earth, but on the personal scale of what I'd done to you and your brother," Cas continued, looking down at the floor. "I failed at that as well, seeing only what my pride showed me. Hearing only what I thought I needed to." He exhaled and shook his head. "Metatron didn't have to do much to convince me that I was the one, Sam. The _only_ one who could fix everything I'd done."

He didn't see Sam flinch back from those words, face twisted up as he looked away.

"I think now, that this is the penitence my Father sought to teach us," Cas said, a little bemusedly. "The journey as important as the destination and all the choices along the way as vital and evolutionary as the choice one makes at the end. At one time I would have considered the ends to have justified the means, Sam. And I would've killed you in a delusional attempt to fix something that possibly cannot be fixed."

He lifted his hands, rubbing them over his forehead as he glanced down at the box. "And then, of course, your brother would've been compelled to hunt me down for killing you."

Sam felt the bubble of laughter ease the tightness in his chest with some surprise. "Good thing you didn't then," he commented lightly, sliding off the chair and looking at the box. "Maybe we better get on with this."

* * *

><p><em><strong>Salem, Missouri<strong>_

The front door was open and the house was silent. At least, Dean thought sourly, until the demon followed him in.

"This is the dumbest idea you've ever had!" Crowley hissed from behind him.

"Yeah, well, it's early," Dean said, walking into the living room.

"Oh, look, there's nothing here," Crowley said, looking around the room. "Shame. Let's go –"

"Hey, sack up and start looking, okay? We don't have that much time," Dean cut him off and waved a hand to the other rooms as he turned back to the room, letting his gaze drift around it. On the mantle above the hearth there was a framed photograph, and he walked over to it curiously. The silver frame held an old portrait, a plain-featured woman, with dark hair drawn up in a roll on her head, half-smiling at the photographer, the name Colette scrawled over the bottom. Her hands were clasped together demurely in her lap and Dean frowned as he noticed the ring on her hand. A slim, filigreed band, the more feminine version of the ring he'd seen on Cain.

_Wife._

Deceased now, he presumed. He set the frame back on the mantle and turned for the study thoughtfully, hearing Crowley thumping his way up the stairs.

The study was as spare for personal information and historical weapons as the living room had been, he realised after a fruitless two minute search of the shelving, cabinet and desk. No safes had been cleverly built into the walls or floor, hidden behind paintings or under rugs. He looked up as he heard Crowley thumping down the stairs.

"Anything?"

"No." Crowley looked around the hall. "He's the most boring demon I've ever come across."

Dean gestured toward the living room. "Looks like he had a wife – that be a good reason for his berserker attack on the Knights?"

"A wife? That's novel."

"Focus."

"I don't know," the demon said with a shrug. "This is rumour we're talking."

They heard the crackle and pop over tyres over gravel at the same time, both of them swinging around to the door.

"He's back, come on," Dean said, unnecessarily, Crowley already scuttling down the hall.

This time, the front door refused to open. "Go!"

They both skidded to a stop in the open kitchen doorway, Cain standing there with a bag of groceries in one arm.

The light changed, a flicker across the ceilings and walls, and Cain looked toward the door. Dean moved back to the living room, pulling the lace curtain aside and watching the truck pull up on the driveway.

"Don't suppose they're with you?" he asked, counting six getting out.

"No," Cain said curtly.

"Guess we can't wait any longer." The shout came from outside. The demon standing in the open driver's door side of the truck grinned at the house. "Your friend, Tara, was very helpful."

Dean felt his blood thicken and chill to ice at the words. They hadn't been followed to the hunter's store, he'd made sure of that. But he hadn't know about the coin.

"Got downright chatty, after I peeled all her skin off," the demon continued and Dean let the curtain drop, turning to stare at Crowley. The King of Hell looked back at him blankly.

"We don't want any trouble, Cain," the demon outside continued. "Just want the so-called King and the Winchester. I gotta new master to impress and I'm bettin' bagging those two will do just that."

"Master?" Dean looked at Crowley.

"Abaddon," Crowley said softly. "This yokel needs to die. I count –"

"Too many," Dean cut him off, turning back to the hall and Cain. "The whammy you put on the doors that keeps us in, will it keep them out?"

"For now," Cain allowed, turning back to the kitchen.

"Better barricade the entrances," Dean said, mostly to himself as he headed for the exterior doors he'd seen. "Get ready for a fight."

"Well, good luck with that," Cain said, raising his voice slightly as Dean manhandled a cupboard across a doorway.

"What?" he snapped, turning to the demon.

"You expose my home," Cain pointed out coolly. "You expose me."

"Well, boo-hoo!"

"Courageous. But impulsive. I'm willing to wager that you fight the same way, second by second," Cain said, smiling at him. "You truly have lived up to your reputation."

"I can't say you've lived up to yours," Dean countered, the criticism stinging a little.

"What can I say?" Cain asked, the smile disappearing. "I'm retired."

He turned and walked into the kitchen, dropping the groceries on the table. "If you survive, you're welcome to join me for the last meal I will eat in this house before I disappear again."

Glancing back over his shoulder, he added, "It's the least I can do."

"Sonofabitch."

"There are six of –"

"I can count," Dean told Crowley tersely. He walked into the kitchen and pushed the fridge across the back door, turning when it was in place. "Alright, I got this, you take the front."

Crowley looked at him for a moment, then reached for the handles of the doors, pulling them together as he backed out.

At the table, Cain was seated, shucking corn. Dean looked at him, jaw muscle twitching.

"So this is your play? Corn?" he asked sardonically, walking around the table. "What am I not getting here? I mean, it's not like you're a coward."

Cain looked up, one brow lifted. "Since when does the great Dean Winchester ask for help?" he asked, picking up a fresh ear and pulling the leaves and stem free. "That doesn't sound like the man who's kept Hell whispering for more than five years now."

He looked up. "Maybe you've lost a step?"

Dean didn't answer, didn't know what to answer. The familiarity Cain had with him was unsettling.

"Let's find out." Cain snapped his fingers and the fridge and back door swung open together, two demons racing into the room, a man and a women, both stopping abruptly as they saw Dean standing by the seated Cain. The demon snapped his fingers again and the door and fridge moved obligingly back into place, slamming shut in the faces of the rest waiting outside.

Casting a startled glance at Cain, Dean moved back from the table as the demons looked at each other then at Cain.

"Don't mind me," Cain said, waving a hand at Dean. "Enjoy yourselves."

_Sonofabitch_, Dean had time to think before his hand was reaching for Ruby's knife and he drew it out. Behind him, the glass panes of the doors to the living room smashed into fragments as a third demon broke through them, and Dean was swinging the knife before the last piece fell, the demon swaying to one side, grunting as the toe of Dean's boot broke the patella of his knee. He closed in, grappling with the hunter and swung him over the table before his leg gave out.

Dean slid over the table and landed in front of the demon who'd told him about Tara. The side of the demon's face was gone, bone gleaming under the ground meat that was left, and he felt a brief flush of satisfaction that she'd gotten one good hit in before she'd gone down. The demon swung at him and he gripped its wrist, pushing it back with the impetus of the swing until it was locked at the utmost reach of the joint, leaving its torso open. Ruby's knife plunged in just under the ribcage and the demon lit up, golden-red, bones in dark silhouette against the hellfire. He pulled the knife and dropped the body at the same time, ducking under a wild haymaker from the woman. He only had a second's warning of the limping demon coming around behind Cain and grabbing his wrist and shoulder, its boot toe splitting muscle as it hit the back of his thigh, and the female demon driving an elbow into his ribs and lifting and throwing him back onto the table.

The demons pinned his shoulder and arms to the table top, and he turned his head to see Cain watching with interest.

"You're doin' great," Cain said encouragingly as the female raised her fist, the point of her elbow aimed for his ribs.

Snapping up both legs, he mule-kicked her across the room into the wall, and with one arm free, swung it in a tight cross into the demon's jaw, the grip loosening on his left, another two quick jabs giving him the leverage to get off the table and place a side-kick with his weight behind it into the demon's abdomen. He still had hold of the demon's arm and felt the dislocation as the body went one way and came up with a hard jerk.

Swinging back around, the woman was facing him, Ruby's knife clenched in one fist. He glanced left, hand sweeping over the sink and picking up the dish-cloth lying there, the end flying out as he wrapped a layer around his hand. When she lunged in, the knife blade was caught and trapped in the folds of cloth and he wrenched it clear of her hand, spinning her around and catching the free end of the cloth in the other as it flew around her neck. With the fulcrum of the cloth, he swung her into the fridge, then reversed direction and sent her flying into the china cabinet, dropping the cloth and grabbing a cast iron frypan from the top of the fridge in time to take out the male demon staggering toward him, plant a solid kick into its ribs and block the female's attack.

He was using their own speed and direction against them now, seeing clearly how they would move and where and when. The woman's gasps and grunts, as she was knocked off balance, first by the impact of the side of Dean's boot to her knee, then hauled back against him with her arm twisted up behind her, were silenced as the knife plunged into her chest, the hunter's face lit up by the scintillations of the colours shining through her meatsuit.

The male demon pulled a knife from the block on the counter, and faced him, eyes a flat black as Dean dropped the body to the floor. Both turned slightly at the crash from the other room as the heavy cupboard blocking the front door slid aside and back, one demon darting inside.

Dean heard Crowley say, "Isn't it past your past your bedtime?", then the demon he faced lunged for him, and he stepped lightly aside, letting it go past, the knife tip scoring through its clothing and flesh as it hit the fridge. It leapt at him on the return, anticipating his evasion and he was thrown across the room, hitting the kitchen cabinets with his back and rolling to his feet.

Thing still fought with all the finesse of a barroom brawler, he thought, blocking a succession of aimed kicks for his knees and shins, it just had more stamina than the other two.

Offering an opening, he turned away slightly and the demon came for it, driving him into the wall opposite Cain, its thumb trying to dig into the tendon of his hand and force the knife out. He swung around and the demon didn't let go, its own arms twisting around over its head. He kicked out one foot and it fell back, hitting the table. Dean caught an aggravating peripheral glimpse of Cain sitting there at the end of the table with a beer as he watched, and shoved it aside, refocussing on the man under him. He pulled his wrist free and plunged the knife into the demon's neck and when the lightshow had finished, rolled the body from the table and let it drop on the floor.

Looking at the thoughtful expression on Cain's face, he felt a spasm of anger. "What was that? Some kind of test?"

"You're fast, and someone back when taught you a bit about fighting," the demon acknowledged, a little sardonically. "Took you a while to warm up, though, didn't it?"

Dean's brows drew together and the demon smiled. "What'd you notice first about them?"

"Untrained," Dean admitted unwillingly. "Still demons."

"Yes, they're stronger than you are, weight for weight more than double or triple, and they don't care about injuries or broken bones or taking a crack to the head. What else?"

The fight had been blur to him, action, reaction, instinctive sizing up of each opponent, each move, each opportunity that had presented itself. He didn't often do post-mortems on real fights anymore. Half-closing his eyes, Dean thought back over the last couple of minutes, seeing the demons coming at him again, slowed down, the half-glimpsed expressions and tells clearly visible now. He'd seen them in the heat of the action and had used them, but not at an analytical level.

"They were nervous," he said finally, looking down at Cain.

"They were," Cain agreed immediately. "Of a man."

He got up, and went to the fridge, pulling another two beers from it and passing one to Dean absently.

"Why?" he asked as he knocked the top of his bottle on the edge of the counter. "Because of that pig-sticker you carry? No."

Dean knocked the top off his own beer and shook his head. He was thirty-five and still alive. Had to be for a reason other than the periodic heavenly interventions.

"Dean Winchester was raised from Hell by God," Cain said, his tone conversational as he returned to his chair at the head of the table and waved an invitational hand at the others. "Dean Winchester killed the Whore of Babylon. Killed an angel, and no low-level cherubim but Zachariah, one of the Powers. Dean Winchester, along with his brother, has decimated Hell's hierarchy, put Lucifer back in his cage and trapped Michael, commander of Heaven's Host down there with him, defeated the monsters of Purgatory, formed an alliance with Death … I don't need to list the whole resume, do I?"

Tipping his bottle up, Dean swallowed the mouthful without answering.

"There are some … similarities between us, Dean," Cain said slowly. "Kindred spirits, perhaps."

"Right," Dean said, not hiding the flicker of disgust he felt, the bottom of his bottle hitting the table with a low thunk. "Except I didn't kill my brother."

"No," Cain said, his gaze cutting away briefly. "No, you saved yours. Why?"

"Because you never give up on your family!" Dean said, staring at him. "Ever!"

"Really? Let me see, I heard that Sam Winchester said 'yes' to Lucifer, you let him jump into the hole. Then there was Samuel Campbell – he was family, wasn't he?" The demon raised an eyebrow at him. "But he made a deal for his daughter, and you and your brother were the collateral on the deal."

Dean's mouth thinned out. "You gotta point to this?"

"Where's your brother now?"

At the man's silence, Cain's smile grew wider. "Family isn't always family, is that right? Has to be earned, with blood and tears and trust."

"The fuck you know about family!?" Dean snarled at him, Sam's words a ringing goad in his mind. "You're a fucking demon!"

Again, Cain moved so fast that he barely saw it, the hard hands knotted in the front of his coat, flat, leanly muscled forearms bunched up against his chest before he'd registered it.

"Ten thousand years in the abyss and I _am_ demon, Dean," Cain's voice was low, deep and Dean could feel it reverberating in his bones. For a moment, he saw skin, fine and scaley and gleaming black stretched over the bones of Cain's face, deep sockets under ridged brow holding red flames instead of eyes, and a bitter smell, acrid and sharp, a smell of burning metal, filling his nostrils and mouth as he stared back.

Then Cain released him, pushing him back slightly, and it was the man again, white undershirt clean but frayed at the cuffs and collar, plain, old-fashioned, wide-legged twill pants and leather boots, all speaking of a life led simply. Or a wished-for simplicity.

"I don't know what kind of game you're playing here, and I don't really care," Dean said, pushing the bottle aside and getting to his feet. "Just give me the damned Blade!"

Cain looked down at the ears of corn in front of him, setting his beer to one side. "Sorry, Dean, I've got nothing to hand over."

"What!?"

Cain got to his feet and carried the corn to the pot of boiling water, his voice rising as he looked back over his shoulder at the hunter. "I no longer have the Blade."

He turned back to the pot. "It's gone."

"Gone!?" Crowley stood next to the smashed frames and glass of the doors leading to the kitchen. "What d'you mean gone?"

Cain and Dean turned to look at him.

"How?" Crowley continued. "The spell brought us here, to you, so it has to be here."

"Your spell brought you to the source of the Blade's power," Cain contradicted him mildly. He pulled up his right sleeve slowly. "Me."

On the inside of Cain's forearm, there was a raised scar, red and curving up to the inside of the elbow. Like the long lower jaw of an animal, Dean thought vaguely, his attention taken by Crowley's eyes widening and the King of Hell taking a step backward and crossing himself.

"Really? Now?" he asked Crowley, mouth curling up in a sneer.

"That's the bloody Mark of Cain," Crowley said defensively, his gaze locked onto it.

"Put there by God himself," Cain confirmed, rubbing a thumb over it. "The Mark and the Blade work together," he added, looking at Dean. "Without the Mark the Blade is useless, it's just an old bone."

"Bone?" Crowley said, eyes narrowing.

"A jawbone," Dean elaborated, seeing the image in his mind's eye. "Of an ass – right? The jawbone you used to kill Abel … because he was God's favourite."

"Abel wasn't talking to God!" Cain's head snapped up, his expression bleak. "He was talking to Lucifer."

"Come again?" Dean prompted and Cain moved restlessly away from them.

"Lucifer was turning him, pouring lies into his ears, telling him that he had the power to raise my brother above all others," the demon said, the emotion draining from his voice as his gaze grew distant. "I couldn't bear to watch him become corrupted, so I offered Lucifer a deal."

_A deal_, Dean thought numbly. Cain had been right. They did have some similarities.

"Abel's soul in Heaven, for my soul in Hell," Cain continued. He looked back at Dean. "Lucifer agreed, with the condition that I was the one who sent Abel to Heaven. So I killed him. And became a soldier of Hell. A Knight."

_Dean, if you can't save your brother, you will have to kill him. Don't let him turn into something he would hate._

His father's voice, low and desperate, his father's breath against his ear and neck. He felt his stomach churn and thrust the memory away, forcing himself to look back at the demon, to think of what it meant that Cain had been the first Knight.

"And Lucifer ordered you to make more?"

Cain stared at the fire. "The Knights are not made, not exactly. I was the first but that was the abyss, fighting the daeva, endlessly, eternally," he said quietly. "Lucifer fell with nine other angels. They were trained by me, they are immortal, with powers even the angels don't have. Lucifer had them first. For a thousand years in the pit, and when they came to me there was not one shred of their divine heritage left."

Dean watched him draw in a deep breath, saw him struggling with memories that had been buried longer than he could imagine.

"It was a time when the populations were small, relatively speaking," he said, half to himself, Dean thought. "Isolated, scattered and most of them with no education, no prospect of a life different from the generations before them. Magic, clumsy and simple, was stronger then, when everyone believed. They let us out and tried to control us, but they were swept aside more often than not by what they'd released and we walked the lands and we left chaos and destruction and devastation in our wake. Blight and famine, plague and disasters and family against family and every massacre opened more cracks between the planes, let more of us up here to tempt, to incite, to seduce and murder and take the souls."

"Until you met Colette," Dean said, his gaze flicking to the portrait on the mantle.

Cain followed the look. "She knew who I was – she knew what I was," he said slowly. "She was a good daughter of the Church, and her faith far exceeded theirs. Her faith and her compassion." He looked back at Dean. "When God put the Mark on me, it was to prevent any from killing me for they would be punished sevenfold for that crime."

"Lucifer thought it was hilarious." His face twisted into a grimace at the memory. "I wandered the earth, alone and outcast, unclean and shunned, poison to all I came near, for five hundred years before I died. The abyss was easier. At least there I did not have to see the expressions of the people I came across, their fear and hatred of me."

He reached out and picked up the frame. "She saw me clearly when I walked over the battlefields and she didn't flinch or run or …" He laughed suddenly, a soft laugh. "Courage? I had never seen or dreamed of the kind of courage she had. And I stayed, to speak to another human being, to hear her voice and her thoughts. After a time, I couldn't leave. And she told me that she believed in redemption and forgiveness." He shook his head and set the frame carefully back on the mantle. "She loved me, knowing all that I'd done."

"What happened?" Crowley asked, looking around the room that although was clean and orderly, didn't have the air he associated with a woman's touch.

"She asked me one thing," Cain said.

"To stop," Crowley guessed, looking back at him.

"To stop," Cain agreed. "When the Knights discovered my abdication, they took retribution. They took Colette, so I picked the First Blade back up," he continued, his voice shaking slightly as emotion pushed against his control. "And it felt so good, having it in my hand again, and I slew them, one by one, digging them out from under their rocks and spilling their blood across the earth."

"Not all of them," Dean said.

"No."

He'd seen her blazing in Colette's flesh, tinting the woman's creamy skin with flushes of red. She had been the best of his students, and they had shared more than the camaraderie of battle, and the flood of fear that filled him was new to him, and he'd blamed it for not seeing what Abaddon would do in the body of the woman he loved, purely because she could.

Colette had been dead, bones broken and pulverised inside her flesh, blood leaking from punctured organs, held upright only by the archdemon's control and it didn't matter that he'd been too late to thrust the Blade into his wife's body, because of his fear. Abaddon had escaped, her laughter filling his ears as he'd held the body of the one person who had seen him as a man again. The one person with whom he'd felt … human … again.

Dean listened, hearing everything the demon didn't say, couldn't, maybe, say in the brief retelling.

"So I buried her, and I walked away," Cain said. "And I'm not returning to the field."

"Well, I'm sorry, truly," Dean said, injecting a note of harshness in his voice. He didn't want to feel sorry for a demon. Didn't want to be partners with a fucking demon. Certainly didn't want to have to keep negotiating with demons instead of sending them back to fucking Hell where they belonged. "But I have to stop Abaddon, so where's the goddamned Blade?"

Cain looked at him, his face shuttered. "No."

He walked past Dean and the hunter swung around. "Hey!"

"Listen to me, you sonofabitch," Dean grated as he grabbed the demon's shoulder and shoved him back against the doorframe, the knife in his hand as he held Cain in place with his forearm. "You may be done killing, but I'm not!"

Cain's mouth twisted and his hand snapped out to grip Dean's arm, pulling it sharply toward him and driving the knife into his chest to the cross-guard. Dean looked down at the buried blade in confusion. No rippling red and gold pulsed beneath Cain's skin.

"You never give up on anything, do you?" Cain growled at him.

"Never!"

He pushed the man's arm back and the blade slid out, bloodied. "Well, I do."

Dean looked from the knife in his hand to the now empty doorframe. "Cain? Cain!"

* * *

><p>The grave was on its own, in a tiny clearing between the woods and the fields. He visited it every day and had carved the stone himself. It was the one place that kept his resolve sure, the one person he still talked to, still listened for.<p>

Kneeling beside the gentle grassed mound, Cain dragged in a deep breath. He had been waiting for this moment, he thought, for more millennia than he cared to count. The hunter didn't believe, not yet, but he felt sure he would, with enough time.

"I've tried," he said softly, ignoring the sounds of the horde surrounding his house, barely five hundred yards distant. "I've tried, Colette, to see myself as you did. But I know who I am. And what I am."

It had only been when she was there, and he'd seen himself in her eyes, that he'd been able to believe things could be different. Once she'd gone, he'd withdrawn, more and more, people's reactions, though less profound than they had been, were still there, an instinctive response perhaps to the stains that clung to him no matter how much she had tried to convince him they'd gone.

They had never gone. He knew that. As the Mark remained, so did everything else. _Everything has a purpose in God's plan_, she'd told him. He wondered if this was his.

"I know you watch over me still, but I - I need you to look away now."

He ducked his head, staring at his hands, lying limply on his thighs. "You told me that there is a purpose to every thing on earth, Colette," he said, his voice barely a whisper. "I think you were right."

* * *

><p>Outside, there was a rumble of engines and the crunch of gravel, and Dean muttered under his breath as he strode back to the kitchen window, lifting the lace curtains aside. Several vehicles and dozens of people were running through the darkness toward the house. Beside him, Crowley peered out, brows rising.<p>

"I'll stay as long as I can," he murmured to the hunter.

"Well, aren't you a peach," Dean retorted, letting the curtain drop as the first of the demons swarmed up and onto the porch, banging on the doors and windows. There had to be a way to either get out without dragging half of the mooks outside with them, or beat them in here, he thought. A movement caught his attention in the living room and he shot across the hall.

"What the hell, man? You in or out, you're giving me head-spins!" he snapped, looking at Cain.

The demon walked across the room to them. "I can give you the Mark, Dean, if it's what you truly want."

"What are you talking about?" Dean asked, every scrap of anger blown aside at the demon's words, knowing what he was talking about, knowing it exactly and unsure if that was what he wanted.

"The Mark can be transferred to someone who is worthy," Cain said quickly.

_Worthy?_ Dean baulked at the word. _Worthy of being a killer? Of being a demon? Worthy of fucking what?_

"You mean a killer, like you?" he asked, knowing the answer, wishing he didn't.

"Yes."

At the front door, hands, fists and elbows were banging against the glass, more and more demons pressing against the fragile wood and panes.

"Can I use it to kill that bitch?" Dean asked, trying to keep his focus on what he needed to do. He could figure out the rest after, he thought, knowing that wasn't going to work out but ignoring it.

"Yes, but you should know with that power comes a great burden," Cain said levelly. "Some would call it a great cost."

"Yeah, well, spare me the warning label," Dean growled. "You had me at 'kill the bitch'."

"Good luck, Dean," Cain said, rolling up his sleeve to expose the scar and holding out his hand. "You're going to need it."

Dean looked down at the offered hand, trying to keep his concentration. A burden … a cost … what did that even mean? He'd lived with those things his whole life.

"Yeah, I get that a lot." He reached out and gripped the demon's hand, lifting his head to meet Cain's eyes. "Let's dance."

Both men shifted their grip together, fingers locking tight around each other's forearm, just below the elbow, and Dean set his teeth together as the demon's touch began to burn. From the expression on the Cain's face, he thought that he wasn't alone in the pain. Light and heat spilled out from the Mark, crackling along the blood vessels and spreading out, sliding with an agonising torment in through his skin, every place it touched Cain's.

"Mmm." He forced his grip to close harder, head ducking and his knees starting to buckle, the – _light? heat? fucking hydrochloric acid?_ – travelling up his veins.

And then his skin began to boil, to blister and fry, from the inside out.

Every cell, it felt like, was being immolated, down to the bone, and Dean pressed hard with his free hand, under the mark as it was formed. Sweat rolled down his face and he doubled over, jamming his front teeth into the back of his lips to keep the scream that was pushing up his throat inside.

_Killer outcast fugitive wanderer bears the mark he bears the mark killer outcast fugitive none shall touch him none shall know him wander forever power at cost what cost murder murder murder outcast unclean killer._

He frowned, trying to separate out the different voices that whispered and rustled and breathed in his thoughts, the words running together, accompanied by flashes of images that burst against his vision, ash and blood and bones, vividly intense and gone before he could take them in.

The Mark stopped glowing, and the pain, and the voices, diminished, leaving barely a memory of it, just a roiling certainty that whatever he'd done, could not now be undone.

"Dean –" Cain's voice broke apart the last of the sensations – auditory hallucinations, Dean wondered uneasily?

"I'm fine," he said, straightening up and dragging his sleeve down over the thick, red scar, hiding a winces as the fabric brushed over the raw skin. "Now, where the hell did you stash the damned Blade?"

"Nothing can destroy the Blade," Cain said, glancing briefly at Crowley and back to the hunter. "So I threw it to the bottom of the deepest ocean."

Dean's exhale rushed out and beside him, Crowley tipped his head back, rolling his eyes.

"It was the only way I could keep my promise," Cain said with a shrug.

Behind the lace curtains and against the headlights of the vehicles rapidly filling the demon's front yard, Dean watched as the demons raced along the porch, gathering in increasing force by the doors and windows, their hammering and pounding intruding again as he felt the sharp-edged pulse from the Mark fade away.

"You will find the Blade and kill Abaddon," Cain said, his voice deepening as he stepped closer to Dean. "But you will make me a promise first. When I call you – and I _will_ call – you come find me and use the Blade to kill me."

"Why?"

"For what I'm about to do," Cain said. He ducked his head, fingers snapping and every door and barricade moved aside, the house filled with the demon-possessed in seconds. Dean and Crowley spun around to see their only exits thoroughly and completely blocked and behind them, Cain reached out, resting his fingertips on their shoulders.

* * *

><p>The transition was instantaneous, not even the disorienting blackness that marked teleportation with Cas, and both man and demon staggered a little at the difference in height between where they'd been and where they were.<p>

In the darkness, behind the house, standing next to the black car.

_Every meatsuit had gone in_, Dean realised.

"They've got him trapped in there," Crowley said, staring at the lighted windows of the house.

"With him," Dean reminded Crowley, and himself.

The lights in the windows changed colour abruptly and the screaming began as the house pulsed and throbbed, its rhythm following the fast beat of the demon's heart. The thought had come from nowhere and that disturbed him as much as the damned thought itself, Dean decided, backing around the hood of his car.

He glanced at the King of Hell and they made a mutual decision to get the hell out of Dodge.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Lebanon, Kansas<strong>_

The library was lit by two lamps, their even golden light spilling over the polished table tops and the map they'd laid out.

Sam was uncomfortably aware that he was holding his breath, unable to figure out his normal breathing cycle as he watched the angel beside him mix the ingredients of the spell and tip the nacreous Grace into the bowl.

For several seconds the Grace reacted, forming tiny towering clouds, filled with light and shadows, and Sam shifted closer, staring down and willing it to work, to show them where Gadreil had gone, where he was. His fingers clenched around the back of the chair as the light began to die away, and the wood creaked in protest as the last remnants of light and cloud fell back to the bottom of the bowl with an anticlimactic plop.

"What was that – was that it?" he turned and asked Cas.

Castiel looked down into the murky contents of the bowl and sighed softly. "I'm afraid there wasn't enough Grace," he told the man. "We'll have to find Gadreil another way. I'm sorry, Sam."

Sam had turned away, his breath flushing out of his chest loudly as the words sank in.

_For nothing. All of it._

Leaning on the side of the table, Sam forced himself to let go of the disappointment. Done was done and there was nothing to be gained from going over what'd happened and what could've happened. "It's alright, Cas. You were right," he added. "You were right about everything."

He looked up at the angel. Cas didn't look like he thought he'd been right about anything. Straightening up, Sam stepped close to the angel and wrapped his arms around him. For a long moment, he felt Cas' rigidity, wondering if the angel had been shocked by the unforeseen move.

"This would be the part where you hug back," he told him lightly.

"Oh." Cas lifted his arms and awkwardly curved them around Sam, hands hovering over the plaid shirt. "Right. Sorry."

He lowered his hands to the hunter's back and Sam grinned, patting him on the back.

"Ah, right, there you go," he said, disengaging and taking a half-step away.

"As far as I'm concerned, Metatron is the key to fixing everything that's wrong," Cas said, resting his hand briefly on Sam's shoulder before he turned away and walked toward the bunker door.

"Cas –"

The angel stopped and turned back. "Yes?"

"Uh, what you were saying, uh before, about trying to fix everything on your own –" Sam hedged uneasily.

"I'll find him, Sam," Cas assured him. "Not take him on. I have, I hope, learned that lesson." He looked at the stairs for a moment then back at Sam. "You know, we could use all the help we can get to find Gadreil and Metatron."

Sam unconsciously pulled his shoulders back, lifting his chin as he looked at Cas. "We got this."

He watched the angel walk up the steps and along the balcony to the door, letting his gaze drop when he heard the locking rings re-engage as he went out.

It didn't matter how much he understood about his brother, he thought tiredly. Didn't matter how well he knew that Dean was only trying to keep his family, to keep him alive. He understood it, understood that his brother could no more stop making his choices for him than he could learn how to fly. Nothing would change between them. There was no room for change now.

Dragging the chair out from the table, he slumped into it, running a hand through his hair and pushing it back from his face. He wondered if there had ever been a chance. Even when they'd tried to go their separate ways, something had intervened. Was it a bond of family, of pain and suffering that no one else in the world could quite understand? Not in the same way. Or was it just habit, ingrained now along with the arguments on the road, over nothing, over trivial dislikes and the pressures of living too close, with too many things that neither could ever get out because it would kill them to see disappointment in the other's eyes.

They were very different, he thought, leaning against his hand as he stared sightlessly at the ornate brass bowl on the table. And they were too much the same.

He remembered crashing at the roadhouse, one night, back in '07, he thought. Dean had done about eleven hours behind the wheel and neither had wanted to go on, no new case waiting, nothing but the empty road and another motel. He remembered Ellen's face lighting up as she'd passed them beers and bustled back to the kitchen to make them something to eat. He remembered seeing Dean relax, more than he'd ever seen him do, before or since, talking to a couple of the other hunters there, shooting a game of pool for singles, laughing at someone's corny jokes. He'd been bemused by the sight, and it'd been that memory that had triggered his speech about the light last year. Dean was a hunter. He couldn't do normal. And, Sam thought, if he was honest with himself about it, neither could he.

He'd lied or just said nothing to Amelia, the whole time they'd been together. He'd told her the emotional stuff, but not the reasons, the causes – the events and memories that had brought him to that point. And he remembered his brother's derisive surprise when he'd said to him that Jess didn't know and would never find out about his world.

It was impossible. Just as what they were doing now was impossible.

The memory of the roadhouse intruded again, and he stilled, eyes half-closed as he let it come back. Before they'd lost Kevin, he'd thought it was still possible, he considered, a little cautiously. It'd seemed as if they weren't quite so alone.

But Kevin was dead. Charlie was … in another dimension. Garth had been MIA for so long he thought even Dean thought he was dead.

He shook his thoughts off impatiently, getting up and heading for the hall and the stairs. There wasn't a solution. Just a series of band-aids that didn't help at all.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Five Miles outside Salem, Missouri<strong>_

Dean stopped the car on the outskirts of the river-side industrial complex, turning off the engine and staring through the windshield.

Crowley turned to look at him. "He was right, you know. You are worthy."

Something he didn't want to hear, Dean thought. "Oh great, now you're gunna get all touchy-feely too?"

Crowley shook his head, mouth quirking up a little as he looked back at the hunter. "Your problem, mate, is that nobody hates you as much as you do," he said quietly. "Believe me, I've tried."

"So how do we find this Blade," Dean said, keeping his eyes on the darkness on the other side of the headlights. He heard the demon's exhale beside him.

"Well, you can't search the bottom of the ocean, but I can," Crowley said reasonably. "So I'll find it, and bring it to its new owner."

Glancing sideways at him, Dean raised a brow. "As easy as that?"

The demon shrugged. "He didn't ward it or hide it," Crowley pointed out. "Just chucked it. It'll take me a little time, but it should stand out down there, not too many dead asses lying around the deeps, I daresay."

He pushed the passenger door open and got out.

Dean closed his eyes as the door clunked shut. "I saw you, Crowley."

Crowley stopped, looking back at him, and Dean pushed open his door.

"Back at Cain's?" he prompted. "You dusted that under-card demon and then you just sat back, and watched the main event."

Dean walked around the hood of the car, brows drawn together. "You knew. You knew about the Mark, you knew about Abaddon and Cain – you knew all of it." He paused for a moment, staring at the demon's bland expression. "And you played me. Why?"

Crowley looked back at him, exhaling softly. "He would never've given me the Blade. Who can say no to you?" He shrugged. "I needed you to play along."

"You knew we were being followed and you didn't say anything."

"Well, Cain would want to see his prize fighter up close," Crowley explained. "You plus demons equals fight night. I was just … expediting the testing process a little."

"Tara died."

Crowley looked away. "Omelettes. Eggs. Et cetera."

Under his sleeve, the Mark flared slightly and the whispers murmured in his thoughts. _First kill yessss killer fugitive hunted but never killed yessss murderer._

The blow came from nowhere, untelegraphed, unseen, faster than he'd ever been before and he felt the knuckles crack, the skin split apart over them as they drove into the demon's jaw. Inside Crowley's mouth, two of the molars loosened, one giving up and falling against his tongue.

"After I kill Abaddon, you're next!" Dean snarled at him, trying to shut out the whispering voices and laughter as he stared down at Crowley.

Crowley straightened up, spitting the tooth and a mouthful of blood out and pulling out his handkerchief to wipe his mouth. "You don't mean that," he said, forcing a smile. "We're having too much fun."

Dean turned away, hunched up as he took a couple of steps and stopped. "Listen up," Crowley continued coldly. "Even with the Blade, we're gonna need all the help we can get against Abaddon."

_Help_. He stiffened as he recognised the King of Hell's euphemism for his brother. Who else would he ever be able to call in. Even if he wanted to, even if he needed to, he didn't think Sam would answer. Not now.

"Go find the Blade," he said, keeping his back to the demon.

Crowley sighed. "It's always something with you boys, isn't it?"

Dean felt the stirring of the air as it moved to fill the space the demon had been.

_Help yessss brother against brother oh yessss_

"Christ, shut up!" he yelled, swinging around the hood of the car and slamming his palm down on the warm metal.

The voices disappeared and he wondered if that was the burden Cain had been talking about. Somehow he didn't think so. The Mark flared again, burning a little deeper this time and he reached for the cuff of his right sleeve and dragged it up, past the elbow. It was more than the sting of a fresh burn, he thought, staring at it. More like, something was living in it, moving and testing the limits of its cage.

There's a happy thought. The attempt to jeer himself out of the foreboding he felt failed dismally. Now that he'd stopped moving, he could feel every blow and ache and overstretched muscle from the fight and he could feel himself stiffening up.

He needed to get out of here. Find a place to hole up for what remained of the night and catch up on the food and sleep he'd missed.

* * *

><p><em><strong>York, Pennsylvania<strong>_

The sunshine poured in through the tall, multi-paned sash windows, filling the large office with light and haloing the fine, white hair that still adhered in drifts and clumps to the spotted and wrinkled skull of the old man standing behind the desk.

"He has the Mark," he said, his voice holding a faint edge of warning. "You were recommended because you have studied it, you know its history … along with your more practical talents."

The woman facing him nodded. "Yes, sir, I have."

"You understand that this is a straight watching brief?" the old man said, picking up the file and looking at her over the top of his glasses. "No contact, except by text to direct him to the next job?"

"I understand," she told him, holding out her hand for the file.

"The matter is now delicate and we must be sure." He handed her the file with an air of reluctance. "Nothing can stop this from progressing now."

Something in his voice struck her as being off, but she kept her gaze on the file as she stretched out, the gift she'd been born with settling through the room like a gossamer drift so lightly that even a cat, so much more sensitive to the changes in atmospheric charges, would not have noticed.

Behind the old man's surface thoughts, there was a churning mass of deeper worries and tightly controlled emotions. Like a thunderstorm building on a hot summer's night, it roiled and bulged, but she couldn't get any closer or probe it more directly without the risk of giving herself away.

Maybe the old man had personal worries, she told herself, letting the mental net dissolve and focussing on the name on the file. Maybe it wasn't to do with this.

_Dean Winchester._

He was a hunter, she knew that much already. She looked back at the man in front of her. "When do you want me to start?"

"As soon as you've familiarised yourself with that file," he said, his voice rasping. "You will report only to me, and only via secured connection. Is this understood?"

"Yes, sir," she said, putting the file in the big tote bag and lifting it onto her shoulder. "You'll have the first report in a couple of days."

"Good," he said, turning away from her, the move unmistakably dismissive.

She looked at his back for a moment then turned for the door, walking out of the office. A watching brief wasn't unusual. She'd handled several since her initiation. The order's safe-hold was in Kansas and she could fly there, hire a rental, or she could take her car and be able to follow wherever he led. After a moment's debate, she decided on her car. It would take longer to pick him up but she could spend the time getting completely familiar with the subject.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Eagle's View Motel, Rolla, Missouri<strong>_

Glistening with grease, dripping with onions and melting cheese, the burger sat in the middle of the waxed paper square and stared accusingly at Dean. He couldn't eat it. Not to save his life.

Wrapping it up again, he pitched the burger, fries and soda into the trash can and pulled a glass from the narrow cupboard above the counter, filling it from the tap at the sink and swallowing the glassful in two long gulps.

The Mark hadn't flared again, but he could feel it, the material of his shirt scratching along it, the scar throbbing in time with his pulse. He walked to the duffle and pulled out the bottle of pills, taking two out and tossing them down.

He jumped at the shrill ring of his phone, leaning against the end of the kitchenette's narrow counter and dragging it from his coat pocket, fingers fumbling with the reaction.

"Dean?"

"Yeah, who's this?"

"Tara, we, uh met the other day."

"This a joke?"

"No joke," the woman at the other end of the line said, and he recognised the raspy quality to her voice, his brows drawing together. "I've been trapped in my damned store for two days."

"How'd you – a demon told me you were dead," he tried again, clearing his throat. "What the fuck happened?"

"You tell me," she shot back tartly. "You left, the next thing I know there's a demon asking me about you. I gave him a couple of shots to remember me by, and got my ass into the backroom, and after a while, he got up and left but two more came in and sat there. They left an hour ago."

Crowley, he thought, rage jetting up at the demon again. If she hadn't had the back room with its traps, she would've been killed. Those demons hadn't even been sent by Abaddon. They'd been directed by the King of Hell to ensure that everything went to his plan.

"You alright?" he asked her, swallowing the rage as it sparked another reaction from the Mark and the tiny, annoying chorus of voices in his head.

"What the hell, Dean?"

"You were right," he said, rubbing his hand over his face. "Demons lie. Listen, you gotta get out of there. They know where you are now –"

"Wasn't planning on staying," she said with a snap. "I just wanted to say, don't come to me for help – ever again. We straight?"

He stared at the wall opposite. Didn't take all that long for the curse to get going, he thought.

"Yeah, we're straight."

The phone cut out and he let it drop, fingers only loosely curled around it as his thumb felt for the button automatically.

She was alive and that was something, he told himself, pushing himself up against the counter and setting the phone on it. Crowley had played him back and forth across the line and he'd bought it all, hanging trust on the demon that if they worked together it all had to be good.

_Not good_, he corrected himself shortly. But at least not actively trying to fuck him over.

Pulling off his coat, he tossed it onto the back of the chair at the table and unbuttoned his shirt. He needed to work the fucking demon smarter, he thought. Needed to figure out what he wanted and how to get ahead of him. The shirt fell to the floor and boots, jeans and t-shirt followed it as he padded into the bathroom.

* * *

><p>Cocooned in the hot water and steam, he leaned against the tiles, palms flat and the water hitting his shoulders, letting his thoughts drift as the pain ebbed out of his aching muscles. The pieces were there, he thought distantly. Floating around. Crowley, almost human again. Sam, nearly dying from the breaking of the contract with God. Wanting to die, that decision as shocking now as it'd been then. His memories of being in his brother's mind, with the angel hiding behind him, weren't sharp and clear, but he remembered the feeling he'd had, the oddness of Death, the way Sam had spoken to the entity.<p>

Could be something, or it could be nothing, he thought, trying to look at it all objectively, tipping his head back and letting the water run down his neck and chest.

Crowley wanted Hell. He was willing to risk his hide to find someone who could take on Abaddon so that he would have a clear shot at it again, he thought, frowning as he realised that their goals weren't all that exactly aligned. The biggest threat to the demon after the Knight was … him. And Sam.

Turning off the water, he reached through the flimsy curtain for the towel, letting out a deep exhale as he realised he hadn't thought of the other major problem.

_I did what I had to do_.

Gadreil had said that a couple of times now, he thought, drying off haphazardly as he tried to remember what else the angel had said. At the time, he'd thought it was an excuse, one of those non-reasons that attempted to justify the unjustifiable. Cas had said the angel had been responsible for guarding the Garden and for letting Lucifer in, to corrupt and taint humanity. He stopped, staring at the wall as he thought about that. Gadreil had imprisoned since the dawn of Time, the angel had said. Lucifer had done the corrupting but Gadreil's punishment seemed like an over-reaction for what had basically been a dumb call.

The pills had taken the edge off the burn and the headache that'd begun with Tara's call, and he walked to the bed, dragging back the covers and dropping the towel. The click of the lamp was loud in the quiet room, in the darkness. His thoughts were too loud as well, he thought uncomfortably, rolling onto one shoulder.

_Protect your brother._

He'd tried. He'd tried to help Sam through Jess' death. Tried to ignore or forgive or brush off the times when Sam hadn't been himself and something else had come out of his brother's mouth, rage and he guessed, the feelings that Sammy hadn't really let out in their childhood. To their father, Sam had been pretty upfront. But he'd never even guessed that some of that anger had been aimed at him too.

He'd tried to keep them going after their father's death, tried to pretend that Dad hadn't said what he'd said, tried to hold it back, not let it out. It'd been a weakness, he thought, telling Sam about it. Another wedge between them. Another reason to keep things secret. And he'd tried to undo his mistakes by making a deal, knowing how much it would tear Sam apart, knowing he needed to do it anyway.

Nothing had really changed in the last nine years. He was still making deals, for his brother. Each time he thought he'd wised up, that they'd both learned that it wasn't the way to go, something else would happen and every other option slammed shut, just leaving door number three, that magic door where deals were made and regrets were counted out after.

_You got what you asked for, Dean. No Paradise. No Hell. Just more of the same_. Cas had said after Sam had taken Lucifer down and he thought, with an amusement that bordered on despair, that it was the motto of his life. Except, someone had reneged on the no Hell part. Hell always seemed to be a part of the equation now.

_Your problem, mate, is that nobody hates you as much you hate yourself._

He rolled over again, dragging an arm up over his head as he buried his face against the soft cotton pillow, eyes screwing shut. He didn't need the demon's reminders of something he'd known for some time. And it would be a moot point, wouldn't it, if he became the pariah that Cain was. There wouldn't _be_ anyone else around.

_I want Dean to have a home. I want ... I just want this to be over._

He'd still had some deeply hidden and never expressed hope about that back then. Now, he could see that was gone. Maybe for Sam, there might've been some faint, clinging shred of a chance, but there was no question that it would never be over for him.


End file.
